Seeing a lot of Caruso to the Celtics trade ideas where the celtics send 3 minimum players to aggregate Caruso's salary. This is actually not allowed due to the new Malcolm Brogdon rule in the CBA (trading multiple minimums for one player.

Here, there is an avenue that works, for just this season, which would be Pritchard, Kornet, Brissett for Caruso. Two minimums. These are the only two guys that work with Payton for the money due to the transition year for the CBA financial trade rules. Just for this year, teams over the luxury apron can take back 110% of outgoing salary into one player. 110% of these three makes 9,477,140, this would be just enough for Caruso's 9,460,000 contract (BARELY by 17k).

The unprotected 2025 first plus the 2028 swap worst(spurs) is what I feel is fair value for Caruso, Fanspo does not recognize swap worsts are tradable so I added a 2027 protected instead. Could maybe get it done with 1 first and pick swap but those picks are also a factor for the other players coming back.

The next part of the trade would be technically classified as a separate trade by the NBA rules on TPE's but the Celtics need the added depth using their tpe especially being forced to lose Kornet in this deal to make the money work. Here the Celtics take back both Drummond and Craig into their 6.2 million Grant Williams TPE, for the cost of another minimum plus 2 seconds. Could do the first part of the deal just for Caruso and find tpe big depth elsewhere but I figured getting both a big and a wing give the celtics a very reliable 10 man regular season rotation, when they've mostly been running 8 men rotations this year.

Craig and Drummond provide you 12 minutes per night unless someone is injured when they could provide more and Craig gives you a real shooting 3/4 which the celtics tried multiple guys (Brissett, Stevens, Banton) at but none could develop a good enough shot for the Celtics typically 5 out offense. Craig while his splits are down this year, shot it 39.5% from three for the suns last year while always being a fairly plus defender who can switch.

Mostly wanted to post this just to let fans know how the financial rules work on a possible Caruso deal, but let me know what you think on the trade front.