Celtics grab Courtney Lee in Sign and Trade

Awesome news today, Lee will be a Celtic.  This is somewhat surprising considering many reports had a sign and trade for Lee as not going anywhere.  The preliminary reports are that the Celtics had to trade JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore, Sasha Pavlovic and Sean Williams and a second round pick to the Rockets to make the salaries match.  With this trade Danny has again added to his off-season accomplishments by picking up Lee, who along with Terry will more than make up for the loss of Allen.

Lee is a great shooter with a 40% career 3-point shooting average.  Lee is also considered a good defender, and great free throw shooter.  But the best part of Lee is his age, only 26.  That means the Celtics are getting a Lee that could be entering the prime of his career.  He’s only been in the league for 4 years, but has made his mark on the game by scoring a career 10ppg while only starting in about half of his games played.

The Celtics now arguably have one of the deepest benches in the league, being able to roll out Terry, Lee, Green, Sully and Wilcox.  And another great thing about this signing is it saves the Celtics from having to rush Bradley back from 2 shoulder surgeries this summer.  With Lee, Doc has a legitimate starter that will easily fill in on the offensive side for Bradley, while holding his own on defense.

The Celtics sent away 2 promising youngsters in JaJuan Johnson and E’twaun Moore.  Both were drafted last year from Purdue, but didn’t get much playing time in Doc’s rotations.  Moore was having a good Summer League, but his position became redundant now that the Celtics have Bradley, Terry and Lee ahead of him on the depth chart.  Johnson also looked good in small spurts, but his lack of size (mainly his twig like stature) worried some fans and analysts that he would never be able to play the 4.  Williams was definitely a project, and I didn’t hear any complaints after he came over late last season, but the Celtics never had any big plans for him.

Overall this is a great move by Danny and the Celtics.  This bench is arguably better than the playoff bench the Celtics rolled out in the 2008 playoffs.  Next up for Danny is to fill in the rest of the bench, hopefully picking up a legitimate big.