So…About Antawn Jamison…

Posted by Zach Lowe on Feb 13, 2010 60096 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2010%2F02%2F13%2Fso-about-antawn-jamison%2FSo...About+Antawn+Jamison...2010-02-13+19%3A19%3A27Zach+Lowehttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D6009

Let’s go take a visit with Mr. Anonymous Team Source, shall we? 

The Globe’s  Frank Dell’Apa drops this on the paper’s C’s blog this afternoon:

The Celtics have discussed a possible deal involving the Washington Wizards’ Caron Butler, a team source said Saturday. But the source said forward Antawn Jamison was not a part of the discussion.

So now Jamison was NEVER part of the discussion? That begs the question: Who was? Because Ray Allen makes about $9 million more than Caron Butler, so the Wiz have a considerable salary gap to fill in order to make any Butler/Allen deal work. Who would fill it? It could have been Mike Miller. It could have been Brendan Haywood. It could have been Brendan Haywood AND Randy Foye. 

The possibilities go on and on, but we’ll never know, because this is an anonymous team source (at least it’s not the ubiquitous “NBA source”) who may or may not be feeding false or slightly false information to the Globe. 

So to recap: Adrian Wojnarowski at Yahoo! reports a Butler/Jamison discussion, Ainge denies it, Woj fires back by defending the initial story as 100 percent accurate, at least one Washington Post reporter confirms it and now an anonymous team official denies Boston had any discussions about Jamison. 

At this point, I’m beginning to wonder if reading and writing about these reports is just a waste of everyone’s time. But I’ll say this: There’s no way the C’s are dealing Ray Allen for Jamison alone unless they get a very tasty sweetener from the Wiz. But I doubt it’s happening either way. 

Oh, what’s that? There’s another anonymously sourced report to discuss? Great!

Dell’Apa adds this:

A team source also confirmed Celtics coach Doc Rivers has explored a possible deal with Charlotte Bobcats coach Larry Brown. The Bobcats have a surplus of point guards and are seeking a center or power forward. Charlotte would have been willing to deal D.J. Augustin. Brown was interested in the Celtics’ Rasheed Wallace.

Wait. Is this the the same team source as the mentioned above or a different one? If it were the same one, wouldn’t you just describe that person as “the source”? And if it ‘s a different source, wouldn’t you write “a separate team source…”? 

Oy. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not picking on Dell’Apa. He’s a really good reporter who is caught in a “rush to be first with everything or the editors will yell and scream” world of journalism, and, like every other reporter trying to break trade news, he’s totally dependent on anonymous sources for information. Sources only talk on the record around trade deadline time when they are responding to a story someone breaks via anonymous sources (see Danny Ainge’s interview yesterday, denying Woj’s Butler/Jamison report). 

In any case: Doc and Larry Brown are close, so this report seems credible. You probably remember that Doc nearly hired Brown as an assistant before 2008. (The job went to Tom Thibodeau). 

I have no interest in a Davis/Augustin deal. But I think the C’s would have to listen if any team expresses a willingness to take Sheed and his contract, which runs for two seasons after this one at $6 million-plus per season.