Celtics will need to shake up roster to clear space for Gordon Hayward

Gordon Hayward finally, mercifully, is now a member of the Boston Celtics.

The Utah Jazz forward announced his decision on Tuesday with a article in The Players’ Tribune. Multiple reports have said that Hayward will sign a four-year, $128 million max the deal with Boston.

The problem with that deal? The Celtics don’t quite have the cap space for it.

That means Boston will need to make a series of moves in order to get Hayward on the roster. ESPN’s Bobby Marks let out a detailed list of some things the Celtics might need to do in order to get the deal done.

Via ESPN:

With Gordon Hayward now agreeing to a four-year $127M max contract, Celtics management now has a series of transactions to do in order to create cap space. The Celtics would have to pull the qualifying offer on Kelly Olynyk, renounce free agents Jonas Jerebko, James Young, Gerald Green and waive the contracts of Jordan Mickey and Demetrius Jackson (or trade). The Celtics would be left with $27.6M in room and likely need to move the contract of Jae Crowder, Terry Rozier or Marcus Smart. Trading Rozier would have the Celtics short $1M of a max salary a lot.

Flurry of action surrounding Olynyk, with multiple teams gauging his price point in unrestricted free agency now, league sources tell ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 5, 2017

That’s a lot of dealing left, and the Celtics will look significantly different next year when compared to the team that took the No. 1 seed the Eastern Conference in 2017.

The most interesting thing to consider is which of the wing players Danny Ainge decides to move. It appears that Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, and Marcus Smart are the three likely big names that could find a new team in 2017-18.

Smart has already been floated as the most likely candidate to get traded.

Via Twitter:

Source says Boston has already begun contacting teams about picking up Marcus Smart.

— Fred Katz (@FredKatz) July 5, 2017

Meanwhile, the Jazz will reportedly try to replace Hayward’s production elsewhere. Otto Porter was a target, but he signed an offer sheet with the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday.