With Ray Allen gone, most of the high quality free agents off the market, it appears Dallas is going to have to go into full rebuild mode or full, let's save cap space for next year mode.
Why not approach Dallas for a sign and trade for Jason Terry instead of doing an MLE signing? Its a bit complicated but since Minnesota is looking to sign Greg Steimsma anyway why not do something like this.
Boston sends to Minnesota: Greg Steimsma S&T for $2 million/year, JaJuan Johnson, Sean Williams, E'twaun Moore and $1 million. Minnesota then can immediately release Moore and Williams as they are on non-guaranteed contracts and then either keep Johnson or buy him out with the million dollars.
Boston sends Dallas a first rond pick.
Minnesota sends Dallas Brad Miller and can either not pick up his option or let him retire, either way clearing the money off their books.
Dallas sends Jason Terry to Boston on a S&T 3 year $16 million contract.
That puts the Celtics with the following salary situation next year:
Rondo 11.0 million
Pierce 16.7
Garnett 10.0
Bradley 1.6
Terry 5.0
Bass 6.0
Green 9.0
Sully 1.1
Melo 1.0
Joseph 0.5
Total 61.9 million
So the Celtics are over the cap yet still have the MLE and BAE to spend with a need to fill 3-4 more roster spots.
I would definitely offer Pietrus a contract to come back at the vet min. as well as Chris Wilcox for the same. Then with the two exceptions there are always these possibilities:
MLE:
Daniel Green(partial)
Ian Mahinmi (partial)
Lou Williams
Chris Kaman
Carlos Delfino
OJ Mayo
Marcus Camby(partial)
Kirk Hinrich(partial)
BAE:
Wide open..use on anyone.