You can find suitable trades for Rondo that are logical. I don't think a trade that returns another young, starting caliber point guard (who will also be a RFA at the end of the season, by the way) when the Celtics just drafted a point guard makes much sense, though.
It's not exactly a disaster if the Celtics don't end up trading Rondo or Green and they both leave at the end of the season, anyway. The Celtics have MORE than enough assets to work around that. Not trading Millsap or Jefferson hasn't exactly ruined the Jazz; in fact, they immediately turned the cap space they freed up by letting those guys walk into a bunch of unprotected draft picks and expiring contracts.
exactly. as much as I'd like to get something really good if we HAVE to deal Rondo and/or Green, we don't HAVE to trade them at all. if somehow they both leave at the end of the season and the C's don't work out a trade for them, the C's will have CAP space to use for trades or FA signings. not trading them is not the end of the world. as you mentioned, Utah started making use of that room already and have some good young players already to show for it.
This is exactly what I said in another thread. If the net on the trade is just more mediocre / average players that we are somehow going to have to deal later, why wouldn't we prefer the cap space and roll the dice.
If Rondo makes it clear that he doesn't want to re-sign, then a return of a couple of decent prospects still on rookie contracts, a first, and an expiring to match dollars makes some sense. We would pick up some promising players while still maintaining salary flexibility.
Again, this is only if Rondo is definitely not returning.
Conversely, if Rondo makes it clear that he intends to explore free agency (which, by all accounts, seems to be the case), the Celtics are not likely to receive a great return: no team is going to surrender much for a soon-to-be free agent. Even the Kevin Love deal was contingent on a handshake agreement from Love to re-sign with Cleveland at the end of the season. At that point, the Celtics may very well have to make a decision between getting what they can for Rondo or potentially utilizing the resulting cap space from letting him walk to attain even better assets.
This is what I was getting at when I brought up what the Jazz did with Millsap and Jefferson. There were rumors all season long of Utah contemplating moving one or both of those guys. They ultimately didn't and they were soundly criticized for not doing so, as it seemed apparent they were going to let both players walk. However, because they didn't do any trades that might have compromised their future cap space, they then ended up with such little financial commitment to their remaining players that they were able to accept a salary dump of $24+ million from Golden State. In exchange, they received three second rounders and two unprotected first rounders. That return is likely far better than whatever they might've gotten for Jefferson and/or Millsap, whom were both impending free agents that teams were not going to sacrifice much for. If you look at the trades from the trade deadline of 2013, not a single first rounder changed hands; no one was going to give up a first rounder for a couple of months of either player, let alone an unprotected one.
Basically, if the Celtics' best offer for Rondo happens to be, say, MKG + Biyombo + two second rounders for Rondo + Green (since it's simply not realistic that the Bobcats would surrender all of those assets in the original proposal at the trade deadline for potentially just 20 or so games of Rondo and Green), they might want to pass on that. They might want to take their chances at using their subsequent cap space to accept a salary dump that could return far more valuable first round draft picks (or even better, young prospects with more promise than those two).
Topic: Trade deadline: Rondo and Green to the hornets trade idea (Read 11081 times)