Monday Notebook: Now What?
Posted by Brendan Jackson on Jul 12, 2010
As most of you already know, Tony Allen will no longer be the Celtics back-up swing-man and Superstar defensive stopper after agreeing to a three-year deal with Memphis. I won’t really get into how I feel about this now but to suffice it to say the Celtics have dug themselves a little hole and I’m just hoping they know where they put their shovels.
It appears the Celtics first choice would be to do a sign-and-trade with Washington for Josh Howard. Per Marc Spears of Yahoo! Sports:
The Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls have shown “serious interest” in free-agent forward Josh Howard, a league source told Yahoo! Sports.
While the Bulls could have the salary-cap space to sign Howard, depending on what happens with their offer sheet to J.J. Redick, the Celtics would need a sign-and-trade to arrange a deal because they have already used their midlevel exception on Jermaine O’Neal.
Howard has yet to receive a contract offer. The Washington Wizards also have some interest in re-signing Howard.
Again, as most of you know, Howard was on his way to NBA stardom before derailing his career with some questionable off-court behavior (never let this dude near a recording device) and then last year’s devastating ACL injury. It’s pretty funny to think that if this deal goes through, the Celtics are essentially swapping one an injury prone swing-man with off-court issues for another now injury prone swing-man with off-court issues. If Howard comes back to full strength, there’s no doubt he’ll be an offensive upgrade to Tony Allen. However, Howard is not a knock-down jump shooter and there is no assurance that he will bounce back from this knee injury, which right now makes him only a slight upgrade over Marquis Daniels.
Now that the Celtics’ defensive stopper is gone, I would say that they will take a hard look at some of the other defensive players on the market: Raja Bell, Antoine Wright, Matt Barnes, etc. Obviously none of those names really rev any one’s motor, but the Free Agent pickin’s are getting slim as it looks like Josh Childress will be a member of the Phoenix Suns and Ben Wallace will be back with the Pistons.
Both of these moves kind of surprise me given the fact that Ben Wallace is certainly on the last legs of his career and Detroit has a plethora of young big men that need court time to develop. Childress also reminds me too much of Jared Dudley, one of my personal favorites (Sorry, BC Alum), a guy who played spectacular in the the Suns playoff run last year.
Maybe Dudley is now expendable given the Childress signing and could be available in a sign-and-trade with Phoenix. He would undoubtedly be cheaper than Josh Howard…okay I will stop the BC love-fest day dream before I get to signing Tyrese Rice as a Rookie Free Agent….ooops.
Okay, so I actually can’t get too far from BC as a follow-up report now states that former basketball coach Al Skinner has NOT been contacted by the Celtics looking to fill their assistant coach vacancy. Skinner, a staunch proponent of the flex offense would be a solid addition, but not really one the Celtics should be looking for. He is a solid defensive coach, a great half-court offense guy, but has no NBA pedigree as a coach. Still, players seem to respect former players and Skinner may be able to command such respect- still, count me a member of the Lawrence Frank bandwagon.
Sticking around the local scene, Northeastern’s Matt Janning has received an invite to partake in the Celtics’ upcoming training camp. I actually love the way this kid plays, despite only seeing spot performances at Northeastern and pretty much one solid game for the Celtics’ Summer League team. I’ll have a full Summer League recap post for you all to read tonight that will talk about all the plays and players who impressed me but the wrap on Janning is that he has good size (6’4″), is a knock-down shooter, and possesses sneaky athleticism. The word is out on his defense but if he’s being looked at by the Celtics, there is no doubt they see potential.
Count Leandro Barbosa out of the running to be a member of the Boston Celtics. The Raptors traded for him in a move that ends the messy marriage they had with Hedo Turkoglu. Seems to be a win-win for both teams. The Suns needed a solid player with the departure of Amar’e Stoudemire and the Raptors needed to get Turkoglu out or risk looking like total chumps (at the hands of Chris Bosh and Turkoglu).
The Celtics will now see more of Jordan Farmar as he is now a member of the New Jersey Nets. Whatever.
That’s it for now. Be on the look out for more news throughout this week as the rest of the Free Agent Dominoes continue to fall.
The Ticker