Please Do No Freak Out That Terry Rozier Is Not Signing An Early Extension

Don’t do it. Don’t even let the slightest bit of panic enter your brain. In fact, this was always the most likely outcome, and if he HAD signed an extension, that would have been the shocking part. It just makes no fiscal sense for Terry to do it, similar to how it made no fiscal sense for Kyrie to do it. My guess is Terry could have left like $10M on a table had he chosen to not hit RFA. If you read that report from the Globe, it looks like Terry is looking for $20M a year and a starting role. Now, that’s a little problematic given the current situation the Celtics find themselves in, but hey you have to shoot high ya know?

So here are the options. Either Ainge trades him in February, which is something you obviously can’t ignore but I consider hard to imagine. I think he learned his lesson from that 2012 Perk trade. You don’t mess with a contending team’s chemistry. Terry could then accept his qualifying offer for next season at like $4M and then hit UFA in 2020 (in my opinion an option I wouldn’t hate), or Wyc tells Danny he’ll cut the tax bill check and the Celts will match whatever Rozier is offered in RFA this summer. Honestly, that’s probably the least likely scenario but you never know. If this team proves to be as good as we all hope, maybe Wyc pays up.

I think we all can agree Terry is a starting caliber point guard in this league, and as I’ve talked about the market is going to be FLUSH with teams that not only have money to spend, but need a point guard. As a reminder, here’s how next summer is looking

But again, don’t freak out with this news. It’s par for the course for any player in Rozier’s position. His market is different than Smart’s and he knows his value. I won’t ever get on a player for going after the bag and you shouldn’t either. Would it have been nice if Terry took a team friendly deal and we didn’t have to hear about this shit all season? Of course, but that’s just not practical. We know how much Danny loves Terry, pretty sure he loves him more than his own kids, but sometimes players get priced out of what you can afford, especially when they have the talent Terry does.

So we’ll put this on the back burner until next June, where I already know I’m going to lose many hours of sleep refreshing Twitter looking for that Shams/Woj bomb. A tradition unlike any other.