The Boston Celtics and Memphis Grizzlies agreed to a minor trade on Thursday, with Boston sending center Fab Melo and the ever-popular "cash considerations" to Memphis for forward Donte Greene in a deal more likely to cause a stir in Syracuse (where both Melo and Greene played college ball for Jim Boeheim) than in either Tennessee or Massachusetts. From Boston's end, the swap — first reported Thursday by Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal — appears to be financially motivated. The Celtics entered Thursday with $72,531,029 in salary committed for the 2013-14 season, according to the essential ShamSports.com salary database . The luxury tax line for the year ahead is set at $71.748 million. The 23-year-old Melo was on Boston's books for a guaranteed $1,311,240 in the second year of the rookie contract he signed after the Celtics selected him with the 22nd overall pick in the first round of the 2012 NBA draft. Greene, on the other hand, is slated to earn $1,027,424 , nearly $300,000 less, on the fully unguaranteed veteran's minimum deal to which the Grizzlies signed him back in April. The lack of guarantee matters — if Danny Ainge and company decide to jettison Greene, they'll dip down to $71,503,605 in total salary, putting them on pace to duck the luxury tax. That's a sensible financial play, considering it doesn't seem especially reasonable to pay extra penalties for a post-Truth-and-KG-trade roster that looks like its absolute everything-goes-right ceiling is to be first-round fodder as a seventh or eighth seed in a top-heavy East. On top of that, Boston has paid the tax in each of the last two seasons , and doing so in '13-'14 would put them in danger of paying the dreaded repeater tax if they repeated the feat in 2014-15 or '15-'16. That's unlikely, of course, as Boston pursues its rebuilding strategy of getting younger, cheaper and leaner under new head coach Brad Stevens, but hey, if you can take care of it now, why wait?
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