Dear Celticsblog gang,
I wrote this mammoth thread on celticsgreen last night while I was bored at work. Is it possible? Impossible? Smart? Stupid? You be the judge!
To Minnesota: Courtney Lee
To Boston: Alexi Shved(sp?), Gorgi Deng(sp?)
Minny is looking to load up on vets to let KLove know that there are serious to build a winner around them. They are also have very depth at SG behind the always brittle Kevin Martin. We would end up getting a much more palatable contract in Shved, and in Deng we get a big man that may not have much upside, but could certainly be a decent big off the bench someday.
To Milwaukee: Rajon Rondo
To Boston: Giannis Whatshisname, Ikpe Udoh, Luke Ridnour, 2014 first round pick (unprotected), option to swap picks in 2015
This would be a big gamble on our part. Rondo is already a multi-time all star and one of the best PGs in the league. However, he is due a new contract soon and I think he will be able to demand a max-level deal, and if I were GM I would not feel comfortable committing that much salary to him. We would be banking on Milwaukee ending up in the lottery. I also think The Greek Freak has some tantilizing potential, though he is light years away from showing it. This trade is definitely a gamble, but it could be huge if things go our way. (Also, we may need to throw in one of our low dollar backups into this deal to make the roster spots work out).
To New York: Gerald Wallace, Brandon Bass, Luke Ridnour
To Boston: the ghose of Amare Stoudamire, Iman Shumpert, 2019 1st round pick
We would have to do this deal within 49 hours of the Milwaukee deal in order for Ridnour to be trade eligible (it may be easier to make it a three team mega deal). The Knicks rid themselves of Amere, who at this point in his career can only play roughly 10-15 a game, and Shumpurt, who has fallen behind JR Smith and Tim Hardaway Jr in the depth chart. They gain 3 players that should become immediate rotation members for their team. The C's get rid of 3 players in their 30s, one of which has one of the worst contracts in basketball. I'd rather take on a year and half of Amare's awful deal than 2 and half years of Wallace's contract. I treat bad contracts like removing a bandaid: the quicker you can remove it, the less it'll hurt. We would also get Shumpert, who I believe does still have some potential. And hey, we get another 1st rounder! (though if New York balked at that I would still do the deal).
So this is the lineup we would end the season with:
Crawford, Pressey
Bradley, Shumpert, Bogans, Shved
Green, the Greek Freak,
Sully, Humphries, Amare
Fav, KO, Deng, Udoh
Not the prettiest lineup. We should end up with a pretty good pick at the end of the year. The plus is we will no longer have a bad contract on this team after 2015! We struggle for one more season, then by the 15-16 season we should have a handful of very good young players and scads of cap room. Sounds like a great way to jumpstart our next championship run