BONUS: Boston Celtics OPTIONS to ADD to a Championship Contender This Summer

Summary

Podcast Summary: Locked On Celtics—Options to Add to a Championship Contender This Summer

Podcast: Locked On Celtics
Host: John Karalis (Boston Sports Journal)
Guest: Keith Smith (Spotrac)
Date: February 19, 2026
Episode: BONUS: Boston Celtics OPTIONS to ADD to a Championship Contender This Summer

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Episode Overview

In this bonus episode, host John Karalis and cap expert Keith Smith dive deep into the financial and roster maneuvering the Boston Celtics could deploy to enhance their championship contention in the upcoming offseason. They unpack trade exceptions, tax strategies, possible signings, and the thought processes of Brad Stevens and the Celtics’ front office—balancing financial discipline with keeping the roster elite around franchise centerpieces Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Celtics’ Approach to the Salary Cap and Tax

• First Apron Limit Adherence:
  The Celtics are highly unlikely to exceed the first apron next season. Even though the "just win at all costs" window is opening, management remains financially disciplined, making moves similar to Milwaukee’s efforts to keep Giannis content ([02:08]).

• Tax Strategy Explained:

  • The Celtics might start the season above the tax, but only slightly, planning to duck under by the deadline if required ([07:58]).
  • The key takeaway: they’re fine beginning above the tax line knowing they can maneuver later, and they won’t "dump" meaningful rotation players like Sam Hauser solely for tax reasons.

• Getting Paid for Staying Under Tax:
  The Celtics are projected to receive about $8–9 million in “tax payment payouts” this year for staying under the tax—a resource that can subtly influence future spending decisions ([25:35]).

  “The Celtics have gotten themselves to a point where they're not only not paying the tax, they'll get 8 or 9 million dollars that they can bank. And so that is not nothing…” — John Karalis [25:57]

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2. Trade Tools: Traded Player Exceptions and Sign-and-Trades

• The Power of TPEs:

  • The massive $27.7 million TPE from the Simons deal and an $8.2 million exception from Georges Niang offer flexibility ([05:16]).
  • Limitations: You cannot combine TPEs or use both a TPE and salary aggregation to chase a mega-contract ([06:00]).

• Sign-and-Trade Mechanics:
  Celtics can leverage their TPE to acquire players via sign-and-trade, giving "mid-level money" (roughly up to $12 million/year), or directly to a targeted free agent if the Vucevic experiment doesn’t work ([04:29], [05:16]).

  “One of the guys that you mentioned on the podcast as a potential—you could say, ‘hey, we'll sign-and-trade for you; we’ll give you the mid-level money that other teams are offering you.’ We’ll just sign you and do the sign-and-trade, and then you still have your mid-level exception…” — John Karalis [04:40]

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3. Roster Building Philosophy

• No Freebies:
  The front office won’t simply ditch role players like Sam Hauser for luxury tax savings, especially given their roles on a championship-level team ([09:00]).

  “If they're a regular every night rotation guy, they're not just gonna move you for simply tax reasons.” — Keith Smith [09:10]

• Flexibility with Outgoing Sign-and-Trades:

  • Celtics have a track record of converting outgoing free agents into valuable TPEs or other assets, e.g., Gordon Hayward, Evan Fournier ([09:33]).

• Resigning and Adding Depth:
  With TPEs, mid-level exceptions, and Bird rights for players like Vucevic, the Celtics are equipped to re-sign and add 1–2 rotation players without gutting the core ([10:50]).

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4. The Brad Stevens (and Ownership) Factor

• Front Office Philosophy:
  Stevens and crew know each player’s value, and while not actively shopping stars, are prepared if a generational talent (e.g., Luka Doncic) unexpectedly becomes available.

  “You just don't know when some front office is going to call…with, ‘hey, I've got Luka Doncic. You're the only team I’m talking to.’…Anything is possible, you know. Copyright Kevin Garnett.” — John Karalis [16:24]

• Human Touch in Transactions:
  Unlike stereotypical “soulless transaction robots,” Stevens manages to execute shrewd deals while treating players with respect, earning positive feedback even from traded stars ([19:00]).

  “You can still do ruthless moves without being a ruthless person. You can still, you know, take the individuals into account.” — Keith Smith [21:23]

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5. Pragmatism and Open-Mindedness About Moves

• The Simons-for-Vucevic swap is acknowledged as unconventional, but both hosts concede that sometimes the front office sees a bigger picture fans may not have considered ([29:00]).

• The Celtics’ organizational process is built for sustainability—willing to go back into the tax for the right reasons, not simply business profit ([29:50]).

  “When you have a title contender, you don't start getting cheap on…trying to win. Are we trying to just run the business for profit here?” — Keith Smith [29:55]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|-------|---------| | [04:29] | “If they're already going to be hard capped at their first apron…sign-and-trade, let's do it.” | John Karalis | | [09:10] | “If they're a regular every night rotation guy, they're not just gonna move you for simply tax reasons.” | Keith Smith | | [16:24] | “When that name is there for you for the taking, you're like, okay, this is how far we're willing to go…Anything is possible, you know. Copyright Kevin Garnett.” | John Karalis | | [21:23] | “You can still do ruthless moves without being a ruthless person.” | Keith Smith | | [25:57] | “The Celtics have gotten themselves to a point where they're not only not paying the tax, they'll get 8 or 9 million dollars that they can bank…” | John Karalis | | [29:55] | “When you have a title contender, you don't start getting cheap on…Are we trying to just run the business for profit here?” | Keith Smith |

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Miscellaneous: Listener Banter & Math Humor

• The latter part of the episode features some personal, lighthearted stories about struggling with math outside the context of the salary cap, with Office and Disney math anecdotes peppered in for levity ([30:24]–[33:01]).

  “I hate math. It's my enemy. My mortal sworn enemy. Me and words. Boom. I got words. Lockdown math? No, no.” — John Karalis [30:24]

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Conclusion

Main Takeaway:
The Boston Celtics are uniquely well-positioned to add or retain key rotation players this summer—thanks to a combination of TPEs, flexible tax strategy, and a front office that combines shrewd transactional sense with genuine respect for its players. While options like extending Vucevic or pulling off a creative sign-and-trade are on the table, all moves will be grounded in the context of team chemistry, cap management, and keeping the franchise in “win now” mode around Tatum and Brown.

Final Thought:
Despite all our fan and media speculation, the only people who truly know the Celtics’ limits and strategies are Brad Stevens, his staff, and ownership. In the words of the hosts: “Anything is possible”—but these possibilities are always measured, strategic, and, at their best, even a little human.

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Listen to the full episode to get the inside scoop directly from the front-line cap experts on what could shape the next NBA championship pursuit in Boston!

Transcript

[A]

Foreign Podcast Network your team every day.

[B]

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[A]

Bonus Content on the Lockdown Celtics Podcast if you were listening to the podcast the Thursday Podcast, you know that I had Keith Smith from Spot Track on the show to explain what the Celtics are doing in the in in the short term, the if you missed it, the who they might sign upgrading a two way guy or two two way guys. Check that out. It's on this feed whether you're listening or you're watching. If you're new if this is your first exposure to the Lockdown Celtics podcast, I'm John Corrales. I'm a beat writer covering the Celtics for Celtics on SI at Sports Illustrated, and I host the show on a daily basis. It's a normally a half hour podcast, usually a little bit more than a half hour that's available everywhere. So make sure you're subscribed everywhere. But for this purpose I got Keith. I've I've kidnapped him, I've tied him to his chair and we're going to Talk for another 10 or 15 minutes or whatever it is as we because I wanted to throw some other things out at you here. The the the potential for because the Celtics are not going to go above the first apron next year at all at no. Even if they decide to pay the tax now, they could decide to pay the tax depending on how the the season is going. They may go into it thinking we're not going to pay the tax and then the season could dictate like we we need to spend more money and because now we're in the Jason Tatum, Jaylen Brown, the the just win at all costs kind of phase of the Celtics, we're starting to creep into the, the phase of where Milwaukee was just doing things. You're like, ooh, boy, I wonder why they're doing that. And it's very much to keep Giannis happy to push that window open as long as it can. I think we're going to start entering that phase pretty soon. So I agree with every point you made in the podcast about they're not going to pay the tax. They probably don't want to pay the tax. And one of the keys is Vuch being good enough and being willing to take whatever less. I still think, I still think it'll be a low number. I think when we look at if Vuch signs and sticks around, I, I honestly, I think it's going to be a single digit million number. It may be, but your point is well taken. I could be wrong. That would allow the Celtics a little bit of leeway. A sign and trade is possible because they have the traded player exception. And if they use their mid level, anything above the taxpayer, like anything above like $6 million. Right. They'll, they'll be hard capped because that, that's considered using. Correct. The full mid level. Right.

[C]

You get anything above 6 million or longer than two years.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

That exception.

[A]

So if they're already going to be hard capped at their first apron. Sign and trade, let's do it. Right. Yeah, you can start. So, yeah, even if, let's just say the Vuchovic thing doesn't work, you can go sign and trade for somebody. One of the guys that you mentioned on the podcast is a potential. You could, you could say, hey, we'll, we'll sign and trade for you. We'll give you the mid level money that other teams are offering you. We'll just sign and you do the sign and trade and then you still have your mid level exception to give to an Anthony Simons or somebody else. You could, you could basically sign two mid level guys.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. Yeah. And that, and that trade exception, just in case people are, you know, kind of like, what, what is the deal? It's 27.7 million. It was the full amount of Simon's salary. Because. And this is why creating the trade exception in the Porzingis trade mattered so much, because that's how they were able to acquire Vuch. I know. Yes. And for 99 of people, it doesn't matter. Vuch for Simons was the trade. But Vuch went into the Porzing or Porzingis trade exception, which means the Celtics technically took nothing back for Simons. That's how you create the big giant trade exception for Simons. They also have the 8.2 million dollar one for George Niang that's still hanging out there. So they're sitting in pretty good shape as far as that. Now here's where I it wouldn't be me if I didn't do it. Can't combine trade exceptions with other trade exceptions. Can't combine them without going salary. So they couldn't like say hey, the Neang exception and the Simon's exception. Let's bring in a $35 million guy. This will be great. It's going to be. I was explaining this to someone the other day because they're like, well they can end up right back in second apron problems and all this. The only way that could even really happen is if they said, hey Vuch, we loved you so much. Here's a 30 million dollar contract, right? And that's not going to be a thing unless Vuch all of a sudden turns into prime Bill Russell on defense and prime Wilt Chamberlain on offense the rest of the season and they sweep their way to, to a title. At that point of being pay them whatever you need to, I don't really care. But that's not going to happen. They're not going to pay them that much. So how they got themselves there previously was acquiring. It was we're going to send out 25 million, we're going to bring back 35 million, we're going to send out 20 million, we're going to bring Back 28 million. Those were the kind of things that they did to build up, build up, build up. Then they had to kind of shed that out this year. So now they're in a spot where yeah, you, that's why I brought up 27 million under the first apron. That is truly your kind of quote, unquote. That's it. That's your spending marker there. I don't even think they're going to go that high because the other important thing to note with the tax, they're 18.4 million under the tax. Let's just say they invest 20 million in signings this summer. That's fine. You can be over the tax just like they were this year. And then it then at the trade deadline it's somebody's got to go, right? And it may be, hey player X, now one of the younger guys has replaced you or one of the younger guys you didn't really pop the way we wanted or a veteran player, why that we signed. It's not really Working out, we're going to move away from you and that it only really matters that you get under the tax by the trade deadline and after that it gets real wonky and hard to try to pull it off. But as long as you do it by the time you get there, that's fine. So I think, I think there's a good chance they'll be in the tax when the season starts, but it won't be by so much that it's like, oh no, how do we get out without giving up players we really, really like?

[A]

Right, right, right. It's going to be an interesting kind of mix because, you know, the other, the other possibility is that they don't use the traded player exception this summer. That they just do salary. They, they could still trade. They, they have salaries to trade. And y, you know, I don't want to think about who might go out to bring in an expensive player because then you're talking about players that we like and I, I don't know if they're. How willing they are to do that.

[C]

Yeah, I think it's. Sorry to interrupt you, John, but I think when we were in season and there was a lot of oh, they're within this amount, they'll just dump Hauser to get out of the tax. I think they showed if they're a regular every night rotation guy, they're not just gonna move you for simply tax reasons. If it is a added benefit like Simons for Vuch of saved enough money there and we got back another every night rotation guy, then I think that's on the table. But when you start talking Hauser, who makes under $11 million next year, your savings are going to be so minimal that it's like you're not just going to get rid of them. I know Pistons fans for months were like, we have a big enough tpe. Just put them in that like it's done. It's so easy and it's like, but you're going to have to give up something real to get him. They like him, he starts regularly this year. He's been playing, you know, pretty well for them for a number of years now. He's a rotation guy on a championship level team. Like they're not just gonna throw guys away just to get, get under. Even their deals in the summertime weren't deals that were just, just gotta get out of it other than Porzingis kind of turned into that a little bit. But that again, they got the TPE out of that. They made a couple other moves to kind of maneuver things around. So, so it's going to be I, I would, I, I'm with you and I, I would you're yo. The other thing is let's say Vuch plays well enough that he draws enough interest. The Celtics have shown a very big willingness to do outgoing signing trades over the years. They did it with Gordon Hayward, they did it with Evan Fournier. They will do that even if it's just for a traded player exception which would again, let's just say somebody's like, man, Vuch was great. We're going to give him $18 million next year. So Seltzer's like too rich for our blood. Wouldn't be surprised if they're like, hey, let's here's a second, turn it into a signing trade instead. If you're going to do it anyway, let's do it that way. Or it may be, hey wait a minute, maybe we can get a guy back with this. It's that they're, they're, they've got between Vuch himself, the player Vuch's bird rights for salary reasons and assign and trade the big traded player exception and the non taxpayer mid level. They have enough to add to add or resign and add a couple of rotation guys for sure.

[A]

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[A]

Thanks for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen. Every day check out Locked on NBA. Locked on NBA game night. They are covering the league. Games are going to be back. And so game night has every game covered. Locked on NBA has all the big stories, all the big storylines covered you. So check those out wherever you get your podcast. All right, so Brad Stevens and his crew, I'm sure they, they have like, if any of them listen, I wonder how much of a chuckle they get that when you hear these conversations. They're like, oh, that's so cute. You guys get like 10% of what we're trying to do. I feel like, I feel like we have such a grasp on things and we're looking at all these permutations and like if you're to talk to one of them, they'd be like, yeah, yeah, sure. But also blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, oh, oh, sure, yeah, that's also possible. That could be a way to go too. And they just have such a mastery of everything. And I don't, I'm going to say this kind of like in the same loving way that you called yourself a soulless transaction robot. They are, in a way soulless transaction robots themselves in that they know everybody's value. And Brad is willing to have that hard conversation with somebody like Anthony Simons got traded and turned around and was like, yeah, no, Brad was great. He was everything was, you know, love that guy. Drew Holiday was traded and was like, yeah, Brad, kind of fill me in on everything. And nothing was a surprise. And, and yeah, it's all fine. They, I think, handled themselves in such a way that they know just from top to bottom, right? Jason Tatum, is there a price for that we would turn and get rid of? Like, what would we trade Jayson Tatum for? And the answer is probably maybe nobody. Or 1, 2, 3, like that. That would be it. But they. They have. I know that they know what each guy is worth, what Jalen is worth, what Derrick White is worth. And not that they're going to go out there and actively shop, but you never know what another front office is going to do. Nico Harrison proved that. And you just don't know when some front office is going to call you with, hey, I've got Luka Doncic. You're the only team I'm talking to. Or we're giving you first crack and you can't be scrambling at that time. You know, what if. If it was Luca or if it's Cooper Flag or if it's whomever, when that guy comes across your desk, when that name is there for you for the taking, you're like, okay, this is how far we're willing to go. And because Brad's willing to have the uncomfortable conversations, anything is at play. There's. Anything is possible, you know. Copyright Kevin Garnett. That's so I.

[C]

We're.

[A]

We're just scratching the surface on. We know we're doing what we think might happen, but what they're willing to do, I feel like, goes beyond our comprehension.

[C]

Yeah, without a doubt. And we also, like, we start to operate under. Well, they're not going to go above this no number and these kind of things. And the only people actually know what those limits are are Brad Stevens and his staff and the ownership. Right. Those are the ones who set those markers. If the ownership is like, actually, we don't really care about resetting the repeater tax. Just go, like, then they'll go. And that's in. I mean, it was right here on this show. I ripped them really hard a couple years ago when I was like, if you do another tax avoidance move with this team that is really good and ready to go for it, like, like, you deserve every bit of criticism. In that year. They didn't. They said, no, this is an ad year. We're going to pay the tax. We're going to add guys. I think that was in 2022 when they made the finals and didn't win. But then it was okay. We're now, now, now here's where we live. Right? We now live here. And this is the expectation. But In a year where it is, yeah, we can kind of avoid the tax. And. And that's the other thing. When people are like, oh, they're so cheap. Were you thinking any of the guys who went other than the Simons for Vucevich trade, Vuchevich trade, which I don't. I, I'm open minded about it, but I want to see it play out. Was anybody. None of those guys. Brad Stevens said it himself, they loved all those guys. But they weren't rotation players, right? None of them was a rotation player. There was. And this sound, this is where it gets very soulless, right? When you say things like there was nothing lost there. Because that's not true, right. Xavier Tillman was a very popular guy in the locker room. Beloved teammate. So there were things lost. But as far as. That's where now I've gotten better about saying there is no encore production lost in those moves. You're not seeing it, yo, it's like, man, now we get to replace 10 points per game off the bench or anything like that. I will also say with Brad Stevens, and I've thought this for a long time, did, this is where I think he's done a really good job of bridging the gap between gm, for lack of a better term. Right. Because that's just the one I like to use. GM and coach of. Hey, I don't need to be, right? Like Brad Pitt playing Billy Beane and Moneyball. Like, I can't be friends with these guys. I might have to cut them, I might have to trade them. I think Brad is still at heart, he's still a coach, right. And I think he always will be. And he's like, hey, it's not easy, but there's a way you can do this where you treat these guys with decency. You work, you walk them through the process, you work with them. Because I also think he's got a. Probably have in the back of his mind, his first year with the Celtics, Danny Ainge did. I think he did five trades in 10 days, including trading for guys they play a game and then trading them again. Like the game later, they traded Austin Rivers and that just so that they were like, you can't have them, Doc, unless you give us something real for him, like give us a pick, right? Like, there was a lot of crazy stuff going on that year which ultimately culminated with like a buzzer beater trade. At least the way it was reported, where it was like, Boston's doing this deal and they're also getting tossed Isaiah Thomas in The deal, which you worked out okay, which then I gotta believe for Brad, too, also led to, man, the way things went down with it probably didn't sit right with him, right? As I'm the guy who's with him every single day in the locker room, watched him get hurt. I watched him go, everything he went through. And I think that's why it probably was without needing to be said. Under me, it's not going to be soulless transaction robot. It will be for math. But we are going to treat them like human beings. We're going to work with guys, and that's how you get guys to get traded and then literally say, man, I loved it there and they were great to me, and I would come back, right, because that. That's where you want to be. Where for a little while there was starting to look like you might have a little bit of trouble. They're just, you know, up and moving everybody and all these things. I mean, for a little while there, they openly, like, yeah, we talked about under. Under the former front office, talked about maybe we need to move Gordon Hayward. And it's like the dude who's like, snapped in half, like, yeah, you know, where does it end? And I get. I mean, there is something to being ruthless. Get it? But I think you can. You can still do ruthless moves without being a ruthless person. You can still, you know, take the individuals into account. And that's. I think that's important that we talk about it at least every once in a while, because there are. These are people. They're not 2K players. They're not lines on my spreadsheet that I just move from one team to another. Like, these are real people. And all this stuff really does matter.

[A]

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[C]

Yep.

[A]

Do you know what that money is going to be, it's not as much

[C]

as it would have been with all the teams that kind of cut money, Celtics included. I think it was set to be about 11 or 12 million per non packs to non tax paying team. Where's it going to get? Think that's down now to like 8 or 9 million each.

[A]

Okay, so, but. But the Celtics have gotten themselves to a point where they're not only not paying the tax, they'll get 8 or 9 million dollars that they can bank. And so that is not nothing that. And I'm sure they've, you know, there's a bank account somewhere where the Celtics have reserves where when they need to pay something, they can pay something that 8 or 9 million dollars. When you talk about what they're paying out and everything next year, that factors into that equation somehow. So no one is talking about the fact that they're going to get a payout from this because they're under the tax. That is something that we need to consider that if they offer Vuch $8 million, you'd be like, well, this covers that $8 million. And so, you know, whatever. Like, all I'm saying is that's not how it works. But what I'm saying is money coming in like that is helpful when you talk about maybe they'll pay the tax for a little bit and that mitigates whatever. Whatever they're. They might end up doing next year.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. Now, yeah, if we write that that check gets caught at the end of the league year and, and then if two weeks later, video surfaces of Bill Chisholm Scrooge mcducking it into a pool full of coins, I'll be like, hey, what are we doing here? Right? But you know, but as long as it turns out to be hey, down the line in, in. Brad being the front office member who speaks with the media has kind of hit on that at times where it's been like, hey, we have every bit of faith that when we need to spend money, they will do like they will. Because essentially what you almost kind of do is you take this 8,9 million and I apologize if that's not the right number. I'd have to actually do the math on that. But let's say it is you take that 8, 9 million, what you're almost kind of doing is go put it in a, in a escrow account and build up a little bit of money off of it. Then when two years from now, the team is like, hey, we got to resign. Peyton Pritchard and Derek White's do a new deal and we've got, you know, player X, Y and Z coming off to rookie contracts and we want to resign. So we're, we want to go into the tax again. Okay, great. So now that 8, 9 million, maybe that's 10, 11 million. 10, 11 million. Enough? Sure. Yeah, we think that's far where we're going. They're not going back into, you know, half a billion dollars. That's probably not going to happen. I'm going to guess again. Unless all of a sudden it turns into oh man. Hugo Gonzalez, Peyton Pritchard and whoever they draft with this year's pick are all, they're all as good as Tatum and Brown and now we need to pay all of them 30 million. That's the only way you start building those types of, of numbers up there. That's probably not going to be something we see again for a long time. And if you do, you'll live there for a little bit, then it'll come, you'll come out of there and then you'll, you'll kind of go through this cycle again. That's, you know, but it's, the big thing is when you have a title contender that you don't start getting cheap on. Yeah, we to let Peyton Pritchard go because we didn't want to pay an $8 million tax bill, you know, on top of, you know, resigning him. That's where then yeah, people have a right to be like, what are we doing trying to win? Or are we trying to just, you know, run a, run the business for profit here? And that's, that's where it gets, you know, questionable. But yeah, I, I think I, I think they're very well set up right now. I think they're very well set up for the next off season. And then it becomes, as you know, I think we learned here is they're probably going to do pretty good with the roster build and even if things don't necessarily always make sense right away. That's why I'm so open minded on the Vuch for Simon swap. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. Maybe it's, you know, something different and I, I just thought, and I was not big on Keda coming in. I was like, this is gonna be. And you know, he's proven me completely wrong. He's been fine, you know, better than fine. He's been good as a starting center. So yeah, I, I think they're set up pretty well for, for this and not now. I mean the nerd in me gets really excited to be like, how are we gonna do all this math and fit all these deals? And that's what I can't wait to, to see.

[A]

I'm so thankful for people like you who are excited to do math because the people like me and the regular listeners, you everydayers, have heard me try to do math on the fly on this podcast and it's not gone well. It has not gone well. It's been comical. I do not. I hate math. I. It's my enemy. My mortal sworn enemy. Me and words. Boom. I got words. Lockdown math. No, no.

[C]

John, did you watch the office? Were you an office guy?

[A]

Yes.

[C]

So when they are on the work bus and Kevin's like doing the math in his head of how fast he'll have to drive or they won't get pies, and then Oscar is like, what is397,000 pies divided by 25 pies? And Kevin just gives them the answer. That's me with the salary cap. I can do math there. You start asking me other math and I'm like, I don't know, it's. It doesn't work. Right. Just like Kevin with, well, salads doesn't work because it's not the same. Right. It's got to be pies. Yeah.

[A]

You know what? On top of, I do not have an acumen for the math. I spent many, many years working in television and doing math in my head in terms of time. So I had a 30 second story and a 45 second story, and that's a minute 15, but 30 plus 45 is 75. And I, I have gotten myself into so much. I've finally gotten myself out of the habit. I'd gotten myself into so much trouble counting in increments of 60 because of time where something was 59 cents and then all of a sudden it became a dollar two. But you know what I mean, like after 60 cents it became a dollar. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, no, that's not right. Because I could do the math with the time in my head, like super fast. Because I was producing shows and I'm going to. Okay, that's 15, that's 30, 45.

[C]

This.

[A]

Okay, this is a minute 15, blah, blah, blah. And I'm going, blah, blah, blah. Okay, no, I'm, I'm, I'm 25 over. I need to cut. And I could do all of that stuff in a hurry. But then I took that 60 second increments into real world and it already took my fuzzy Math brain. And it just threw it into a blender. And I don't know if I've ever really, truly recovered.

[C]

So anyway, when I worked for Disney for very long time, two decades, part of one of the jobs they had was my team did all the schedules for people. So, like, do you mean there's 80,000 people work at the property? And, you know, so they, you know, if it's. How do you guys schedule the number of popcorn vendors to have on Main street usa? Well, there's all this stuff that goes into it and all this, you know, really complex math and studies and including, like, people walk this far for popcorn, but they'll only walk this far for water and all kinds of stuff. So there's all these things. But part of it was the schedules were done at the 15 minute level. So, like, you started at 7, 7, 15, 7. It took me years to get out of that, like, way of thinking and doing everything in terms of, well, 8.75 hours. And people were like, what is 8.75 hours? Like, what is that? It's not even a measure of anything. That's not a measure of time. That's. And I'm like, well, that's 8 hours and 45 minutes. And like, that is it really. I guess maybe kind of, you know, I'd be like, yeah, you know, that's just kind of how we did it. So, yeah, I'm with you on, you know. Yeah, my brain only works in certain ways. And then, you know, but there's other things where it's like. Like, if my daughter asks me to help her with the math homework tonight, I'm gonna be like, all right, let's go to the Google machine, because I have no idea. We have a dot over there in the corner. Ask her for help and she'll probably walk through it better than I can. Or better yet, we. You have teachers for this. Go, go. Yeah, go learn from them.

[A]

Oh, God. Well, you're the teacher here and I appreciate it. We've done two podcasts. Basically, the bonus podcast is another full podcast at this point.

[C]

So that's how it goes. You wind me up and let me go.

[A]

That's actually. That's. I love it. I love it. Keith, thank you so much.

[C]

I appreciate it.

[A]

I appreciate you. I appreciate everybody here. Bonus podcast here. So thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Once again, share the podcast. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Networks. Your team every day.

[E]

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