Jared Zwerling of Bleacher Report/Turner Sports is the latest to offer up trade rumors involving the Celtics and Knicks. Relax, it doesn’t involve Rondo.
But even if it’s not Rondo, the Celtics are still attractive for the potential of a big man swap, and according to a source close to Gang Green, they might be willing to take on what basically no other team wants: Stoudemire’s $21.7 million and $23.4 million salaries this season and next, respectively.
In that scenario, according to the source, the Knicks would acquire power forward/center Kris Humphries and small forward Gerald Wallace, while the Celtics would lose two massive salaries for one, Stoudemire, who the Celtics would have to retain only until 2015 (Wallace is through 2016). The Celtics also plan on “stinking in 2014-15 anyway,” according to the source close to the team, so Stoudemire’s financial presence wouldn’t necessarily hurt them as they have plenty of salary-cap flexibility and can continue to add roster pieces.
I’m not sold on this deal.
Stoudemire is a walking corpse. Wallace has some value, right?
But this is all about money. Celtics management would prefer to get the bulk of their dead money off the books by the end of 2015.
Zwerling also has insight on the Celtics plans for Avery Bradley:
Interestingly, according to a source familiar with the Knicks’ previous free-agency plans, they and the Celtics actually explored trading Wallace, Humphries and Courtney Lee for Stoudemire and Shumpert over the offseason. Now that the Celtics envision Avery Bradley as their shooting guard for the future—”They like him at $6 million a year,” the source close to the Celtics said—they don’t have a need for Shumpert.
Is Avery Bradley worth $6 million per year? I think so.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
