Send Williams to Detroit and outlaw to Boston would settle it out. We would then have to fill out roster wit brooks Moreland and Lockett maybe.
It could go like this:
1) We send JT/Ray/DWill ($13.185M) to Detroit for Smith ($13.5M). This would put our salaries at $76.168M, but we would only have 11 players, so we would also have a roster charge (~$507K) for the minimum salary for a rookie and our cap figure would be $76.675. This would put us just a super hint under the tax level.
2) We send Ben/Terry/Outlaw/1st in 2019? ($11.876M) to Boston for Rondo ($12.9M). This would put our salaries at $77.192M but with only 9 players we'd have three roster charges to put it at a total of $78.714M.
Of course, we have a hard, hard cap at $80.829 (the apron) because we used the MLE on Collison, so we'd have only $2M to play with. I imagine we'd sign Moreland and Lockett as you suggested (both to minimum contracts with team options) and then Brooks, though his minimum is actually $948K. That would put us at $79.155M with 12 players and our only real backup to Cousins would be Evans. We'd have a tiny amount of room (about 3 minimum rookie contracts worth) to sign players that might fill us out if necessary (or in case of injury).
Rondo/Collison
Stauskas/Brooks
Gay/Lockett
Smith/Landry/Moreland
Cousins/Evans/Acy
There are three things that give me pause for that lineup:
1) We have basically no wiggle room. We have a ton of minimum contracts, and a bunch of guys that we can't or won't trade. Outside of possibly Landry or Collison we have no options to change the roster. That's what we get. Maybe it's OK - that's a powerful starting lineup - but there's no room for contingencies.
2) The backup SF is very weak. Lockett is untested at the next level, and I believe he's a bit undersized for the 3. I suppose Stauskas (also a bit small) can step in for stretches against the opponent's bench, but one injury to Gay and we are in a world of hurt.
3) The backup C is not ideal. Evans can do it, but he's really a bit small, Acy even smaller. I don't really think Bhullar is a guy who can be brought in to answer that (conditioning, mobility), nor is Oriakhi (size). Again, with no injuries to Cousins we can survive going small against the opponent's bench, but depth is not there.
That said, that is a killer lineup which, if it gels, ought to challenge for a top-4 seed (probably doesn't get there because the Clippers/Spurs/Thunder/Warriors probably hold serve and we can't discount Dallas/Houston/Memphis...Portland...Phoenix...) Man, the west is stacked.
