ESPN's Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski are reporting that the Boston Celtics are actively shopping Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley in an effort to clear enough cap room to offer Gordon Hayward a four-year, $128 million maximum contract.
On Tuesday, Hayward announced that he'd be leaving Utah, where he developed into an All-Star over his seven seasons, to reunite with his college coach Brad Stevens in Boston.
Hayward will reportedly have to agree to a sign-and-trade which will allow Boston the ability to offer him a max contract, though the Celtics still haven't found the right trade partners to facilitate the deal.
Per ESPN,
"The Celtics have to make a complicated series of moves to create enough space to sign Hayward to the full max. But because the salary cap did not rise as much as projected, they likely will have to trade one or more of those three players to sign Hayward. Sources told ESPN that Boston has discussed trade concepts involving Smart, Crowder and Bradley with at least half a dozen teams on Wednesday."
"But even if the team renounced the rights to Jonas Jerebko, James Young and Gerald Green, waived Jordan Mickey, left 2016 first-round pick Guerschon Yabusele in Europe this season and traded Demetrius Jackson's partially guaranteed contract and Terry Rozier, Boston would have $29,444,533 to sign Hayward, which is still about $300,000 short of his max."
