Celtics are attempting to offload Jaylen Brown?

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Dakota from Braintree joins! Does Dakota stand by the fact that the Celtics are attempting to offload Jaylen Brown?

Transcript

00:00Dakota called in and he wants to, I want to know what blowback have you heard from this and do you

00:08stand by the fact that the Celtics ownership is attempting to offload Jalen Brown prior to a sale

00:14of the team Dakota and Braintree? So let me say this, this is not from anything from inside the

00:20Celtics or players, anybody tied to the Boston Celtics. This is coming from like the deal side,

00:25the finance side as they're coming. They just called do all the bids as a report in the globe.

00:31So the trade deadline's coming up on Feb 6th. And if you look at what's on the book for next

00:37year's salaries, right, of $233 million for next season with the escalator in the luxury tax,

00:44that means they're going to be paying $280 million in luxury taxes, $280 million. That's

00:50more than the entire salary. So you're going to pay $513 million, which puts them at a loss and

00:57whoever takes over the team is going to be on the hook for that money. And when you look at the value

01:02of the team of $4 billion, $5 billion, they're not going to get $6 billion, I can tell you that.

01:07It's going to be somewhere maybe closer to $5 billion. But a team, when they buy any franchise,

01:13you only have to come up with 10% down. So on a $5 billion, you come up $500 million. And now

01:18you have to make those debt payments and it's going to be financed. The other 90% is financed.

01:23So when you do anything, whether you're buying a house or buying anything, you're looking at

01:27your payments going forward. And they're going to have an extra $280 million on the book for next

01:33year. So if you work backwards from that, as these deals start coming in, the buyers are going to be

01:39looking at, all right, well, you know what, I was going to use that free cash, that free,

01:43the positive cash flow going forward to make the debt payments. And if I'm straddled with this

01:47salary and this $513 million payment in total, it's not going to happen that way. It's 100%

01:56guaranteed going into next season, someone's going to be gone. It may be multiple people.

02:02And the only way from a value, and don't forget, I'm not saying I want to trade Jalen Brown,

02:08or somebody told me that Jalen Brown's on their way out. But there's only a few players that they

02:13can move to remove $50 million above their current salary that gets them close to the threshold.

02:19And that's Jalen Brown, Holiday, Porzingis, Derek White, or whatever. So whether it happens

02:25at the trade deadline, which they would maximize all their value, because if they wait into the

02:31off season, what value are they going to get knowing that they're going to have to trade some

02:35of these guys? And if you do it in the off season to match up salaries, you're going to have to take

02:39salaries back for another year. That doesn't do anything for next year's luxury tax. So hold on,

02:48just one quick second. So yeah, let's say pags, or Rob Hale are the people that are winning the bid,

02:56they will offload Jalen, you're saying no matter who owns this team, that Jalen Brown will not be

03:02on the team next year. Well, I think I think, like, again, I didn't say specifically Brown,

03:08Brown is the most logical choice, because you can maximize your value for moving the salary.

03:14If you trade away Holiday, what type of return you're going to get for getting a salary off the

03:18books, not anything. What are you going to trade for Porzingis, who again, is hurt, not playing

03:24great, there's a lot of risk that goes with KP, you're not going to get much. So again, I'm not

03:28here to play general manager of the Boston Celtics. I'm just saying the person that is most likely to

03:34get moved, whether it's before the deadline, or definitely in the offseason is going to be Jalen

03:40Brown. And again, I don't want to trade them. But I'm not what the one that's running the team and

03:45going to be taking ownership of the team, whether wick is wicks involved going forward, or whether

03:50pags is involved with the group, it doesn't matter. This deal has been three months late,

03:55Chris, if you remember, they said they wanted this wrapped up before the end of last year.

03:59And the biggest hang up right now is this tax burden of the luxury for next year, because it

04:04changes all the equations in the payments for the next ownership group. Dakota is the only way

04:09that like is the not the only way is the other way to maybe relief, relieve some of that tax burden.

04:17And I know that wick and ownership wouldn't want to do it, is that the new owners are maybe trying

04:25to lowball them, because they know that they're going to have to deal with all this. Is that

04:31kind of like maybe something that's part of the, you know, the the the kind of the the hiccup here

04:38or the holdup is because a new owner is like, Well, I'm not going to give you what you're asking

04:43for. Here's what I'm going to give you because I know I got this giant tax number coming.

04:47That's exactly the case. Because look, they're going to look at what the out of pocket finances

04:52are for year one in any bank. Don't forget, someone's not coming in paying cash for this

04:57deal, they only have to come up with about 10% down, and then they finance the rest. So those

05:03finances go over whether 1020 years, whatever that is that debt, and they have to pay on that debt.

05:09And if you're taking 280 million that would could be used to pay down that debt, and they're not

05:14they have to go into their pockets. That's throws off the calculation of the value of the team.

05:20So I would say this Dakota just quickly, but I would say very simply, I am

05:28I'm I wonder if wick thought that there would be a bigger, better offer sooner,

05:34like as in he announced that and then it kind of went off the board because

05:39I when you think about buying the Celtics and assuming this debt and the debt you would incur,

05:46should you decide to invest in your own building, which is the only way you really

05:50are going to make money on this investment, right? That is compounding the debt twice.

05:54Yes, yeah, because the debt holders are looking at well, what do you have for an asset other than

05:59the Boston Celtics franchise? You don't own your real estate, Chris, if you're going to get into

06:03the restaurant business, right? Don't they always say on your own building, instead of going to rent

06:07though they say just own your own house, right? Because every dollar that you put in, you're

06:11going to get at some point in the future. And right now, that is part of the problem. And I

06:16don't know where they threw out this 6 billion at the beginning. You know, I think even Forbes had

06:21it somewhere around 4.5 billion. But you know, because of the franchise, the expansion franchise

06:26that's going to be going in Las Vegas, this deal getting done is going to set the, you know,

06:32the price pretty much of who wants that new expansion franchise. So the league wants to

06:38do everything possible to get the most money. There's something going on in the background with

06:42this thing being three months delayed, got pushed out, all the timing leads it up. Listen, again,

06:47I'll go back to it. I'm not saying I want to trade anybody. But this is coming from the finance side

06:52on it's affecting the deal. Now the Celtics might just say, screw it, we'll take less. We don't want

06:57to do this to the fans. We don't want to break up this team and just bite the bullet and that

07:02that 280 million over the cap next year is already going to be in like baked into the deal.

07:08So it will affect the deal in one way, whether the Celtics want to be on the hook for it or the

07:13new ownership wants to be on the hook for it. But if you're the Celtics, the only way to maximize

07:18this potentially now go back to Jalen Brown. He is your biggest asset and it gets the most money

07:23off the books. Fifty three million. He's he's at the cap pit for next year. That's a lot that gets

07:29them under the threshold. So there's no luxury tax part of this deal. And Jalen Brown, again,

07:35if you wait for the offseason, so if it doesn't get done at the trade deadline,

07:39there's going to be something definitely maybe probably before draft day to get assets.

07:43I put Houston in my in my Twitter post only because there's a lot of make sense. They have

07:50the most cap room that they could swing a deal with. They don't have to trade back expiring

07:54contracts or just a few. And they could give you a lot of assets. You know, there's Brooklyn

07:59and then there's the Washington Wizards. I don't know if they'll trade them in in the in the in

08:03the Eastern Conference. Maybe it doesn't matter. But again, I'm not here to play GM. But the only

08:08way this makes sense to maximize the value on shedding the contracts is to do it before the

08:13trade deadline. All right, Dakota, thanks. So that clears up some things for me. One,

08:17it's not specific to Jalen Brown. Nobody's talked about Jalen Brown. It's specific to the fact that

08:22the Celtics ownership group is searching for money and it's not been there to the level they want

08:27before they sell the team. And a way to increase the value in a in a sad way is to decrease the

08:33value of your team as in its talent, but it will alleviate the payments next season. And the

08:39yeah, and the league is not going to allow the Celtics or the potential new owner to squeeze

08:47the Celtics and lowball them because of like Dakota said, the franchise that they're trying

08:52to put in Vegas and they don't want the league to say, all right, let's say the Celtics are worth

08:57four, four and a half billion, a new owner, the potential new owner comes in and goes, listen,

09:02I'm only going to give you a 4 billion or whatever, because I don't get my own arena.

09:08And there's this giant luxury tax that I'm going to have to be dealing with. There's no way the

09:11league wants that to happen, because then when the Vegas team bid comes out, they're going to

09:17look at what it costs for the Celtics. So that's going to affect how that thing moves. To me,

09:22it's just the names that have been presented over and over again or been talked about for

09:25the Celtics seem like people that want to say, wow, I spent all this money and have all this

09:31talent and I don't care about how much it's going to cost down the road. We're going to be

09:34a championship team. I just don't see somebody like Jeff Bezos or anybody else at that caliber,

09:42having that much money wants the people going, leaving the ownership group to be making those

09:49decisions. Right. But remember the thing about Bezos and those other guys, the reason why they

09:54are such savvy businessmen and, you know, trillionaires and multi multi multi billionaires

10:03is because they know business and they're not going to purchase some for more when they know

10:12the asset isn't worth that because of the other things that might be connected with the luxury

10:18tax and not owning your own building. So they might say, OK, if you want me to buy this team,

10:24you're either going to give me a discount on price, which the current owners are going to be

10:29like, well, we don't really want to do that. Or and so the current owners are going to have to

10:33figure out a way to eliminate some of that tax. I'll be pissed at that. Eliminating involves

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