Boston is third team in deal will acquire Tyler Zeller from Cleveland as well as future first-rounder and Marcus Thornton from Nets
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) July 9, 2014
Three-team trade will see Nets acquire Jarrett Jack and Sergey Karasev from Cleveland. Boston gets Thornton, Zeller and a first — Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) July 9, 2014
Danny Ainge is a slick dude. The Cleveland Cavaliers are desperately clearing cap space in an effort to bring LeBron James back to town. Ainge is sitting there with a $10.3 million Traded Player Exception just casually putting the “hey, you need to trade decent players, I got space for ’em” vibe. Meanwhile….
Danny Ainge picking up a haul for clearing Cavs cap for them. Also perhaps delayed response to Pat Riley’s “shut &^*# up” quote?
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) July 9, 2014
The Celtics, according Paul Flannery, give up a 2nd rounder for the pleasure of getting 7-foot former UNC star Tyler Zeller (2nd team all-rookie in 2012), and Marcus Thornton a talented guard who’ll provide some bench scoring…. assuming he stays.
Thornton will make $8.5 million this upcoming season, while Zeller is on the final guaranteed year of his rookie deal ($1.7 million). My guess is the C’s will take a long, hard look at Zeller as a potential future piece, while Thornton becomes “expiring contract trade bait”.
Oh, and the Celtics got a first-rounder from the Cavs in this deal. While it REALLY looks like they’re about to bring LeBron back to Cleveland, it’s still possible that it’s all some kind of ploy and he’ll go back to Miami. If LeBron screws the Cavs AGAIN, that first round pick will lo0k pretty good.
Update: Woj has the pick details and protections:
Boston gets: Marcus Thornton-Tyler Zeller, Cavs 2016 protected pick. Top 10 in ’16, ’17 or ’18. Unprotected in ’19.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) July 9, 2014
Regardless, the Celtics have now added three viable assets to the team and they only gave up a second round pick. This is pretty well done for Ainge who is clearly only just getting started. This is definitely a “stand by, more to come” situation.
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