The defending champion, it's up again.
According to a report from ESPN late last night, the Celtics and forward Hauser agreed to a four-year, 45 million early contract extension, which is fully guaranteed and does not include any options.
Hauser is an undrafted pick in 2022, and has been improving year by year in the three years since joining the Celtics, playing a total of 79 regular season games last season, averaging 22 minutes per game, and scoring 9.0 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.0 assists, he is the seventh scoring point of the Celtics in addition to the five starters + Pritchard.
However, Hauser's role is relatively simple, that is, that of shooter, he averages 7.1 shots per game in the regular season, 5.9 of which are three-point attempts, and can shoot 42.4% from the field.
Looking at the league, among the players who shot a total of 400+ three-pointers throughout the season, Hauser ranked fourth in shooting percentage, and only Grayson Allen, Conley, and McCollum were higher than him.
His bottom corner three-point shooting is particularly good, 23-of-51 three-pointers in the left corner, shooting 45.1%, and 37-of-72 three-pointers in the right corner, shooting 51.4%.
In the playoffs, Hauser played less minutes to just 14.9 minutes, but he still averaged 5.4 points and 2.2 rebounds per game, shooting 38.0% from three-point range.
Against the Mavericks in the Finals, Hauser was particularly impressive, scoring 31 points in the last three games, including 9-of-16 three-pointers. Hauser made 11-of-23 three-pointers throughout the series, and for comparison, Doncic also made 11 three-pointers, but he took 45 shots, twice as many as Hauser.
Of course, the shots of the two are completely different, Hauser just does what he is good at to the extreme, his shortcomings are in defense, he was chased for the first two years of his career, and he made some progress last season, but it is still not very good.
However, I also want to know that with Hauser's shooting level, if you add above-average defense, then the Celtics want to renew their contract, but it is not something that can be solved by 45 million in 4 years.
Even so, 45 million in 4 years is already good.
After entering the three-point era, some white shooters with similar positioning to Hauser have become sought after in previous years, such as Joe Harris signed for 4 years for 75 million, Dunroe signed for 5 years for 90 million, and Bertans signed for 5 years for 80 million.
Compared to the above three, Hauser has a little less production, but he doesn't lose his shooting skills at all, and he just helped the Celtics win the championship, and now that the salary cap is rising, the contract extension is only half the amount.
From this point of view, the Celtics can sign him on a four-year, 45 million contract is already an operation above A, and it needs to be said that Hauser will only have a salary of $2.09 million next season, and this contract will not take effect until the 2025-26 season.
The 2025-26 season will be an important time for the Celtics.
At that time, Tatum, Derrick White, and Hauser's new contracts will all come into effect, plus Jaylen Brown's super cap salary signed a year ago, and the contract extension of Porzingis, Holiday and Pritchard last season, the Celtics' salary will reach 225 million, and even if the salary cap continues to rise by 10%, their luxury tax will reach 210 million.
In other words, the total expenditure in a season will reach 435 million.
And because of surpassing the second local tyrant line for two consecutive years, the Celtics will face some penalties, such as losing the mini-middle class, not being able to attach cash to the trade, not being able to sign in the buyout market, not being able to raise salaries in the trade, and the first-round pick in seven years will automatically drop to the end of the first round, which will definitely have an impact on the Celtics' operation.
At this point, you can probably understand why the Celtics owner is in a hurry to sell the team after winning the championship, not because the team is not good enough, but because it is too expensive to build such a team.
But money aside, Celtic's operation this summer can be called S-class.
Before renewing Hauser's contract, they had completed contract extensions with Tatum and White, and also brought back Kornet, Ketta, Tillman, and other championship players who didn't play much in the playoffs, and even two-way contract players Drew Peterson and JD Davidson were retained.
Just look at the Nuggets in 2023, it is extremely difficult to retain the lineup after winning the championship, but the Celtics not only did it, but also kept it intact, and then looked at the contract renewal amount of White and Hauser, in every sense, their operation this summer can be evaluated by S-level.
Last season's Celtics were undoubtedly successful, going 64-18 in the regular season and 16-3 in the playoffs, and as long as Porzingis is fitter next season, there is room for improvement in the playoffs.
It's just that there is also pressure, look at the salary, once the Celtics can't win the championship next year, or don't meet expectations, they are likely to be forced to disintegrate in 2025, after all, the annual expenditure of 425 million, unless it is a super rich boss of Ballmer's level, other ordinary rich bosses can't stand it, it's too normal.