I mean, yeah in that at $10M he;d be wildly underpaid.Well, at 10 million he is easily moved into someone's space next year if need be. Not so much at 20
Fournier is a 16-20Mpy talent based on how the league has worked the last few years. He's probably a little overpaid at the top of that range, but not wildly so. The issue for us is that with our roster we really needed him to take 3 years and closer to $16M to make much sense despite him being a very good fit. Above that and you're locked into a team that is only a true title contender if both Tatum and Brown take big steps forward. You can't do that. At $16M or so you can have more ability to trade a guy like Smart for a star and have the depth to be a contender, or you can pretty easily move Fournier. At 20M you have tax issues, and you probably have to pay to move him unless he has a terrific year.
I think the Celtics were hoping to get Fournier back in the 3/48-3/53 range and see what happened with Beal and the like later. 4/80 is just too constricting, it makes more sense to get a stopgap in Richardson even if he;s not as good, and if you can't get a deal for Beal done, make the Beal decision, Smart and TL decisions all at once at the end of next year