we can keep Lee's bird rights and still sign ONE max FA.

SO

If we sign and trade Lee to Wash for nothing (they have cap space, and Lee gets the bigger raises and 6th year) do we then get a player exception we can use for a trade or FA?

If we did I would think this would be very valuable. We could then sign a 2nd max guy and have a $10mm player exception to sign or trade for another guy

1) sign max FA #1
2) sign and trade Lee
3) sign 2nd max FA
4) use exception to sign Tyrus Thomas, Mike Miller, Brandon Haywood, etc etc

Would this work?

I want to say that TPE - traded player exceptions - count against the cap, just like a player cap hold.