Signing Courtney Lee appears to be hinged on Jason Terry sign-and-trade
The team has intentionally not finalized deals with Green and Terry in order to allow Ainge flexibility to further maneuver this offseason, though handshake agreements are in place and those players will be in a Boston uniform next season.
These further maneuvers include potentially signing Courtney Lee. However, the Celtics are left with very little cap space in which they could use to entice Lee into coming to Boston over his other suitors. They could potentially clear up a little more room and free their mid-level exception by working with the Dallas Mavericks on a sign-and-trade for Jason Terry, which is most likely what is holding up the process of finalizing his deal with the Celtics:
Sources with knowledge of the discussions told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that the Mavericks and Celtics did discuss sign-and-trade scenarios to facilitate Terry's move to Boston early in free agency. But Dallas has since made other plans with its cap space, such as Friday's amnesty claim on Elton Brand, and are thus resistant to taking back Keyon Dooling or Sasha Pavlovic in a sign-and-trade, which would be necessary to make such a deal work.
Hopefully Danny can convince the Mavs to work with him on a JET sign-and-trade, but it looks like Dallas has been making some moves of its own that might not work with a sign-and-trade scenario.
This leaves me wondering -- since Jeff Green hasn't signed officially yet, do you think he might be willing to take less money than the initial $36 million/4 year contract that was originally announced if the Celtics can't pull off the Terry sign-and-trade?
