Bill Simmons caused a stir yesterday by tweeting that Terry Rozier isn’t happy with his playing time and the Celtic need to trade him.
That report was quickly followed by a Boston Sports Journal report that poured water on the rumor.
Still, the trade winds appear to be picking up steam again after Shams Charania of The Athletic reported that several teams are ‘waiting’ on the potential availability of Rozier in a trade. Meanwhile, the Celtics as a team and Rozier have stumbled at times over the course of a 6-4 start, with Rozier playing to his usual skillset from both a positive and negative standpoint. Great rebounding, a low turnover rate, solid 3-point shooting are the plusses. Lackluster finishing at the rim (32 percent on 2-point field goals) and a low assist rate remain the main negatives of his game.
With seemingly too many mouths to feed on the Celtics bench, Rozier, on the surface, would appear to be a trade candidate if Danny Ainge wanted to shake things up. However, a league source tells Bostonsportsjournal.com that a trade of Rozier during the season is extremely unlikely.
Today, Danny Ainge appeared on Toucher and Rich and he was asked directly about this situation. After a laugh, he said…
I talk to Terry quite a bit and I haven’t heard any of those types of things, but I don’t know how reliable any of the sources or rumors are. Terry hasn’t shared any of those with me and I think he would if he were feeling that way. Terry knew going in this year what his situation what his role was going to be and he was as excited and enthusiastic as anybody on our team for the upcoming season.
I know for sure that Terry would love to be playing more minutes but there’s a lot of guys on the team that would love to play more minutes but I feel like I have the kind of relationship with Terry that he would come to me and talk to me or Brad if he was really frustrated by his situation, and none of that’s happened.
Terry Rozier seems like a pretty direct guy. Brad Stevens and Danny Ainge have always seemed inviting to their players. A leaked, back-channel report to Bill Simmons of all people never seemed like Rozier’s style, especially when this is exactly the situation he was told to expect.
If this wasn’t ten games into the season, I might have taken this rumor a little more seriously. Right now I chalk this up to more frustration with the tough losses than the situation. I don’t think this report would have come out if the Celtics were 9-1.
We discuss this on today’s Locked On Celtics podcast. Check it out.
[protected-iframe id=”9075d4b7bde25f2d8b0147da8e3e52fd-142507471-1227608″ info=”https://player.megaphone.fm/LKN3948633355?” width=”100%” height=”200″ scrolling=”no”]
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
