Now that the Gordon Hayward sign-and-trade has been completed the Celtics were able to announce the signings of Tristan Thompson and Jeff Teague. I beleive if the Celtics had gotten back players for Hayward, they would have had to use other exceptions and means to sign these two. Maybe a sign-and-trade with Cavs. Regardless that doesn't matter now. The Celtics are now hard capped according to Bobby Marks.
For the Celtics to use the full $28.5M trade exception during the season, they would need to clear out $9M in salary. https://t.