If ya'll take anything away from this, take away the fact that Marcus Smart can be signed-and-traded. I think that's an important point.
Unfortunately, I thought the same but @saltlover explained that Smart's S&T value will only count for half the money in a trade.
So even if he hypothetically signed a 20M/Year extension as a S&T piece, it would only count for 10M in the trade, not 20M.
TP for being a good student!
Even so, if you combined Smart (20M downgraded to 10) + Morris (5.3) + Yabu (2.6) + sign-and-trade Monroe (6), that allows the Celtics to back 125% = 30 mil.
Even without Monroe we're looking at just adding Smart (20 down to 10) + Morris (5.3) + Yabu (2.6) + Nader (1.4) = around 24 mil... which is right around what Durant took his pay-cut year.
Boston could then offer LeBron more with non-bird rights the next year. Ideally, Horford also opts out to take a team-friendly multi-year deal as well to reduce his 2019-20 salary.
Neat idea, except that this takes the Celtics above the hard cap (which they are subject to with a sign-and-trade) with only 11 players on the roster, gives the Cavs a crippling luxury tax bill for a team that isn’t likely to be very good next year, and sign-and-trade deals are for a minimum of three years so LeBron could not re-sign with his non-Bird rights next year. And no, he could not be released and then resigned, because surely a team would claim LeBron, and the NBA would recognize such a maneuver as blatantly making an illegal contract agreement and prohibit the Celtics from resigning LeBron if they released him.
Oh, and the Cavs are also subject to the hard cap because they’re getting Smart in a sign-and-trade, and you’ve sent them more than $10 million over the hard cap. Just getting Smart alone makes it impossible for them to field a 15-man roster and stay under the hard cap without additional moves.
So yeah, there’s a lot wrong with that idea.