The Celtics, of course, are in Orlando without Paul Pierce but with some family members, and Doc gives us the quote of the day. Via the Patriot Ledger’s Jim Fenton:
* Elsewhere, the serious talk is about the injuries to Pierce and KG, whether the C’s will make a quick trade in reaction to those injuries and whether the bench can step up. Just about everyone agrees the C’s will not make a trade in the short-term, according to ESPNBoston.com’s Chris Forsberg, and the Globe’s Gary Washburn says these injuries should reinforce the team’s commitment to using its bench. Here’s Danny Ainge in the Washburn piece:
“This has nothing to do with wear and tear, especially in Paul’s situation.’’
There are a number of interesting things about this quote. First, the NBA season is still 82 games, right? Is Ainge using 81 here because KG has already missed one game and Pierce will miss the Christmas game—and beyond?
Second, if this is really a team goal, why has it taken unexpected injuries to bring it to fruition? I’m not saying it should be a team goal to have two star players miss a few games over the course of a season. But if it is, this isn’t the smoothest way to kick in the implementation of that goal. When Gregg Popovich decided to save his stars for the playoffs last season, he just sat them without any injury to prompt the benching.
The C’s play a majority of their back-to-backs after the halfway point of the season. Does this mean the team will sit Pierce or KG once or twice on the second end of back-to-backs?
It just seems like this statement deserves some follow-up reporting.
Third, if the Pierce injury isn’t about wear and tear, what is it about? I’m not saying Ainge is misstating things here, I’m just curious. Can infections just develop suddenly in one’s knee? Is there a doctor in the house?
Oh, and KG is playing just 30.1 minutes per game, a career low, while Pierce is logging 35.4 per game—right at the Ainge limit of 36 but about two minutes fewer per game than he played last season.
The Picasso of the Trade Machine plays around with it, after the jump.
* Mr. Simmons gives us an early Christmas present with a massive NBA trade column (13 pages when printed out, or the equivalent of at least three office trips to the bathroom stall). Say what you will about Simmons, but the guy knows the NBA back and forth. And he understands how trades work.
And he understands that the Celtics are not in a tremendous position to help themselves via a trade. This is because they don’t have one huge expiring contract they would be willing to trade (something Cleveland has in Zydrunas Ilgauskas’ $11.5M expiring deal); instead, the C’s have a bunch of smaller expiring deals linked to players that no one really wants.
That’s not to say teams like, say, Golden State want Ilgauskas because of his basketball skills. They don’t. But it’s just harder to make one of these expiring for non-expiring trades when you have to find a team with the available roster space to take on three expiring deals (Scal + TA + Giddens, for instance) that would add up to enough salary to send back one large bad contract.
And Simmons understands this, and he predicts the trade deadline will be tough for the C’s unless they are willing to part with a quality piece. Here are the two fake Boston trades in his column:
Fake Trade 10: Tayshaun and DaJuan Summers (cap throw-in) to Boston for the Tony Allen/Brian Scalabrine/J.R. Giddens expirings plus Big Baby and $3 million. Imagine the Celts tossing out a defensive quintet of Pierce, Rondo, Prince (if healthy), KG and Perkins? Now that’s a championship quintet! Worth the risk, I say.
(Note: I would have swapped Rasheed Wallace for Perkins there, but it’s tough to frighten teams defensively when your center has man-boobs. Hey Rasheed, when do you plan on getting in shape for the season? It’s Christmas. Do we have an ETA yet? February? March? Could you let us know?)
See what I mean? The C’s have to throw in Big Baby to make this deal happen. It’s intriguing, sure, but in the defensive line-up Simmons suggests, Pierce has to defend the shooting guard, right? He can do that in short stretches—we’ve seen it this season against Andre Iguodala and Dwyane Wade—but not for super long stretches.
So for the majority of the game, Prince is your back-up three, right? Do you give up Big Baby for a guy who is going to be your back-up three for 20-25 minutes and your defensive ace three for three minutes?
Maybe.
And here’s trade #2:
Fake Trade 7b: Calderon to the Celtics for Eddie House (EC), Tony Allen (EC), Glen Davis and $3 million. Celts get the third guard they need; Toronto dumps Calderon’s contract, pockets $3 million and gets a useful banger in Big Baby.
(EC=expiring contract).
I’ve spent a lot of hours trying to figure out a Jose Calderon trade I like, because the Raptors are clearly in a position to dump him. The team is functioning fairly well with Jarrett Jack at point guard, and Calderon remains a gross defensive liability at that position. He’s still a valuable offensive piece because of his shooting and lack of turnovers.
But I haven’t found a deal I like, and I certainly don’t like this one. The Celtics already have an entrenched PG, and Calderon will earn about $9.5M per season through 2013.
So any Jose deal is unlikely.
* Finally, Chris Sheridan reports some big news on TrueHoop: Team executives and agents are zeroing in $54 million as next year’s cap figure, about $2M higher than the doomsday number the NBA suggested in a memo toward the beginning of this season.
This makes little practical difference for Boston, since they are already approaching $65 million with just six players under contract. It obviously makes a difference to the teams that will be under the cap, a few of which would surely have made runs at Rajon Rondo had the C’s not sealed the Rondo extension.
And, really, that’s a nice holiday gift for us, isn’t it?
The Ticker