With the NBA lockout ended the Celtics are back at work. The season is set to start on December 25th, yes Christmas. But what team you’ll see on the court is an unknown at this point.
Rumors already started as soon as the lockout was lifter. The first rumor was that Danny Ainge would be open to trading Rajon Rondo in the right circumstance. This of course drew a ton of negative comments from fans to the point that some said they wouldn’t be Celtics fans anymore if the Celtics traded Rondo.
Then there was the Rajon and Jeff Green to Oklahoma City in exchange for Russell Westbrook and Perkins. Westbrook had a pretty bad playoffs so Danny figured he could pull off the deal. Oklahoma City was not interested and that was that.
Then the grumblings started in the last couple days of a possible Chris Paul to Boston trade. The Celtics really just needed a third team to make the deal happen. As of yesterday that third team was speculated as Indiana. The Celtics would need a third team to make the cap numbers work.
Danny’s done it before and is clearly trying to do it again.
Now the NBA owns the Hornets right now. So that means that David Stern at some point in the process gets to say yes or no. For all that he wants a New Orleans team to succeed on the table was the franchise being dissolved during the bargaining. So wouldn’t he want the Boston Celtics to land one of the leagues best players so that he could possibly have his dream scenario of a Boston and Los Angeles finals? I thought so.
So despite the fact that Paul is saying he wouldn’t sign long term if traded to Boston, I think they try and make this move anyways. Ray Allen is 36, Garnett is 35, and Pierce is 34. These guys have maybe one run left in them and bringing Paul to town will be an interesting piece of bait to dangle if Dwight Howard really wants to play with him after next season.
So for now, I’ll be in the “wait and see” camp but if Danny can pull this one off, I may actually forgive him for the Perk trade.
