Final Courtney Lee Trade Details

Yes, this is another Courtney Lee trade post. It was just so complex that it needed three posts ok? Also, welcome to the summer.

As the sign-and-trade became agreed upon and ultimately finalized and announced over the last 24 hours or so, more and more details have emerged. Here's what I know (and feel free to fill me in on anything I've missed).

Boston obviously gets Courtney Lee. Lee's deal is 4 years, all guaranteed, starting at $5M with raises of $225K per year for a total of about $21.5M.

Houston gets JaJuan Johnson, E'Twuan Moore, Sean Williams, and the 2nd round pick that we got as compensation from OKC (that whole Jeff Green thing). This is actually a very valuable chip because it was originally the Bobcats pick and will very likely be a very early 2nd rounder - sometimes more valuable than late firsts.

Portland apparently had to get involved to make salaries work. They took a signed and traded Sasha Pavlovic (deal has to be for 3 years, but only the first year has to be guaranteed and he might end up getting cut). The Celtics also send Portland cash (presumably to cover his salary) and two 2nd round draft picks for their troubles. One of them is the Celtics own pick for next year and the other was originally the T-Wolves pick. The Blazers also sent Houston someone named Jon Diebler but he was going to get cut anyway. (most of these Blazers notes are courtesy of Joe Freeman's twitter feed)

Apparently the Rockets are going to waive E'Twuan Moore and Sean Williams to save money. Due to rules in the CBA, the Celtics cannot sign either one as a free agent in the next year, so neither is coming back here any time soon. Last I saw, it sounded like Moore was leaning towards joining the Bulls.

JaJuan Johnson has a guaranteed deal, so he's harder to move. However, it sounds like he (or his agent) is threatening to not show up to camp because they have about 30 power forwards. I would imagine that he'll get his wish anyway since the Rockets are bound to do something in the trade market.

Got all that? As John of Red's Army mentioned, this feels a bit like one of those trades that someone would cook up on the trade checker and get laughed at in the forums for proposing. There was some real value that we gave up, but all of it was replaceable value. You can pick up second rounders for cash or for helping team's match salaries on complex deals like this. You can find project big men and combo guards late in the draft every year.

What you can't find that easy is a starting caliber shooting guard that plays defense and hits corner threes with regularity. I didn't think Ainge could pull it off honestly. Yet somehow he managed to do it. Once again, Ainge proves that he's one of the most creative GMs in the league.

Oh yeah, and from what I'm told (I didn't do the math), the Celtics still have the ability to use the Bi-Annual exception - perhaps on Greg Stiemsma or another big man that wants more than the vet minimum.