Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big storyline. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.
Danny Ainge said Thursday he wasn’t trying to trade Rajon Rondo, and two league sources backed him up yesterday in the wake of a report that the Celtics president of basketball operations was in discussions with Dallas about his point guard.
“The Celtics haven’t had any conversations with Dallas about Rondo,” said one source. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no truth to it. What in the world does Dallas have to offer for Rondo?”
The second source pointed to the state of the Dallas roster.
“They’re trying to rebuild around a 35-year-old power forward Dirk Nowitzki,” he said. “They have a lot of old expiring contracts, and that’s about it.”
Six Mavericks, including Nowitzki ($22.7 million in 2013-14), small forward Shawn Marion ($9.3 million), shooting guard Vince Carter ($3.1 million), point guard Darren Collison ($3.3 million), shooting guardRodrigue Beaubois ($3.2 million) and small forward Jae Crowder($788,872) are entering the final years of deals. The Mavericks are in the process of shedding salary to make a run at Dwight Howard.
A Celtics team that just traded Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry to Brooklyn probably isn’t in the mood to get old again, even for just one year.
We all know how this works, especially during a blow-up, rebuild and subsequent reconstruction. When a team goes through this process nobody is off limits, especially once Danny Ainge decided to execute ‘Order 66.” Right now, in this league, the only truly untradable player is LeBron James. So does that mean Rajon Rondo could be gone as well? While it didn’t seem like it during Ainge’s draft night press conference, well hey anything is possible.
At this point in time it doesn’t seem too logical to trade Rondo however mainly because his value is at an all time low. He’s still rehabbing from a torn ACL, he had a sub-par season in the games he played in last year while his team had a better record without him. True or not, there’s the idea out there that a big reason why Doc left is because of him. Many still question his leadership abilities and just about everyone is saying it’s a death wish for any new coach to come here to have to deal with him. So I ask, how exactly would the Celtics benefit from trading him now with all of that against him?
The only reason I could see is to completely clear contracts and acquire more draft picks. But as Mark Murphy highlighted in his piece above, even that’s a long shot. If the Celtics truly are aiming for “Tankapalooza Part 3” then I would just tell Rondo to take his time (along with Jared Sullinger). Even if he has to miss the first two or three months of the season to rehab. Then, he can get some games under his belt to re-build his value. Rondo is one of the talents you trade assets to acquire so to me it would have to be quite the offer that comes across Ainge’s desk to move him. Keep that seat buckle on, the Celtics roller coaster summer is just getting started.
Related link: CSNNE – Mavericks inquire about availability of Rondo
In the story above, A. Sherrod Blakely quotes a source within the Dallas organization as saying:
“Acquiring Rondo at this point as seen as a longshot and they don’t anticipate that to change at any time soon.”
Sherrod went on to say that’s it’s more likely that we see Rondo on the C’s “for at least one more season.” His reasoning is because now that Pierce and KG are gone, the Celtics need ‘an attraction’ for fans to watch games, basically. So, are we having fun yet at the circus?
The rest of the links:
Boston Herald – Larry Brown: Time for Doc Rivers to move on | Ray: Less is more | Boston Globe – Two sides to Doc Rivers’ exit as coach (Sunday Notes) | Celtics’ trade hurts, but it was time | Seth Jones hopes to make his own history Sunday | ESPN Boston – Video: MacMullan on legacies of KG, Pierce | An inside look at trade acquisitions | CSNNE – Ainge gets ready for busy offseason
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