Celtics might have 'interest' in J.R. Smith, but they don't have any cap room to sign him

On Sunday, Frank Isola of the New York Daily News caused a bit of a stir within Celtics Nation by publishing the following about free-agent guard J.R. Smith:

It is likely that Smith, a one-time Sixth Man of the Year with the Knicks, will re-sign with Cleveland but there are several teams that have interest in the shooting guard. One team is the Boston Celtics, whose second unit could certainly use a little scoring punch.

Barring a trade to clear cap space, the Celtics have approximately $9 million to sign Smith. He’s looking for a bigger payday, somewhere in the $15 million per season range. The Cavs are currently offering between $10 and $11 million annually. The Celtics would have to get close to $15 million for Smith to want to leave Cleveland to be a back-up to Avery Bradley.

Unfortunately, Isola shared some bad (likely outdated) information.  Not only do the C's not have $9 million available to sign Smith, they're actually already over the $94.143 million salary cap for 2016-17.  As we discussed back in July, Smith was a viable option for Boston before it re-signed Tyler Zeller.  That ship has now sailed.



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