I'd like to start off by saying I'm not against just riding it out and reloading next year, but I think I've found some minor deals that could help us slightly this year (and possibly in the future) and one mega deal that might actually be possible to pull off, but would require other things to go right to really maximize the trade's potential.
I've done the research and all the numbers work, so let me know what you think about these trades for the Celtics if they were to happen.
Trade 1
We send Sacramento: Keyon Dooling + a future draft pick.
They send us: JJ Hickson.
Hickson isn't working out in Sac so a pick and expiring I think would net him. His contract expires this year so we won't take on any extra salary for next year and he's an athletic PF/C to run with Rondo.
Trade 2
We send Minnesota: Dooling, Pavlovic, Daniels, Steimsma + the clippers pick and a future 1st round pick Top 20 protected.
They send us: Michael Beasley
All Minnesota wants for Beasley is picks and I know almost everyone wants to dump JO for him, but picking up Beasley who is a SF or undersized PF for JO kills us for size. That is why I'd prefer dropping those 4 players who are basically dead weight at the end of the bench (excluding Dooling, who I want to dump for more AB and Moore) than give up our only true center who's size may be critical for us.
Trade 3
This trade gets very complicated, but here we go.
We send Orlando: Rondo, Pierce, Dooling, Bradley, JJJ, and our 2 1st round picks.
Orlando sends us: Howard, Turkoglu, and Jameer Nelson. Also we receive trade exceptions for Bradley and JJJ.
This trade would leave us with 40.5 million on the books next year, so we could sign Deron Williams to pair with Dwight. We could also try to flip Nelson to the Lakers for Luke Walton, Jason Kapono, and Darius Morris, which would save us an additional 3 million next year and Walton would be an expiring to try and trade off at next years deadline (Nelson is also an expiring next year.)
For this trade to really pay off Dwight has to agree to an extension and we would need KG and and Allen to come back next year on vet minimum deals to go for another title run with Williams and Howard. We would use the trade exceptions on a couple of 1 yr contract guys for filler this year.
We could also try to work out a deal for Beasley using JO and future picks to solidify our SF position for this year.
I think a starting 5 of: DH, KG, Beasley, RA, and Nelson/Moore and a bench of: Bass, Turkoglu, Wilcox, Pietrus, plus filler players (Pavlovic, Daniels, Steimsma) would at least make us a very scary team in the playoffs this year and with Deron Williams next year I think we're major contenders.
If we did trade nelson to L.A. i think a guy like Ronnie Price could be had for a trade exception and we could let E'twaun run the point.
As I said it could get very complicated to get the max potential out of this trade, but I don't think any of what I've came up with would be going overboard to see come together.