Again, my question -- who is going to trade us value for half a season of David Lee?
What team out there is going to think "trading for David Lee and starting him at power forward could take us to another level right away"?
It would require something weird happening. However, lets say Blake Griffin gets injured and is out for the season. If the Clippers are cruising towards a high seed I could definitely see Doc thinking a team of Paul, Pierce, Stephenson, Reddick, Lee, Jordan, and Josh Smith could still contend with Lee being critical to replacing Some of Blake's offense (and having jordan and paul help cover his defensive short comings). This is a long shot, but under the premise of monster year not impossible.
Another scenario, say the Jazz are really building off their momentum from last season and on their way to 50 wins. Maybe their owner gives up an asset they view as middling (Burks or Hood) and trade them for Lee (and perhaps one of our least valuable picks) to give them a shot at making the second round or a little bit of noise (My perception is that team could really use inside scoring with Gobert being very raw and Favors taking very many long 2's).
Another scenario the rockets are incorporating Lawson in nicely, Harden and Howard are doing their thing but Jones is injured again and Montiejunas is playing quite as well as last year (while they really miss josh smith). They maybe give up one of their embarassment of high upside young players (capella) to push them over the top with some additional post offense.
Mavericks? Matthews, Parsons and Williams really exceeding expectations. However, they have absolutely zero low post offense in Zaza and Dalembert. Bring in Lee to spell dirk and provide some low post offense. Danny likes Justin Anderson or some other young player on their team.
None of these are super likely, but could see them happening if things strike right and Lee is playing like a monster.