MONDAY, 9:51am: The signing is official, the team announced via press release.
8:52pm: Mavs coach Rick Carlisle confirmed the team will officially sign Lee Monday morning, Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com tweets.
SUNDAY, 4:13pm: The Mavericks have signed David Lee, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (on Twitter). Dallas has yet to make an official announcement, but Stein indicates the deal is done.
The 11th-year veteran had just cleared waivers from the Celtics, who released him Friday as part of a buyout deal. Shams Charania of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports reported Saturday that Dallas was expected to sign Lee using the prorated room exception, which is a form of the mid-level.
The room exception is worth $2,102,224 as of today. Its original value was $2.814MM, but according to collective bargaining agreement rule, it began to prorate by 1/170th each day on January 10th. Lee cleared waivers because no team had the free cap space to absorb his $15.5MM salary. Boston attempted to find a taker for Lee prior to Thursday’s trade deadline, but the power forward reportedly had “no value” around the league.
Lee, who has not played since January 10th, has appeared in 30 games for Boston this season and is averaging 7.1 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 15.7 minutes of action per contest.