1. Smith is known for head scratching plays and poor shot selection. Presumably playing him with Rondo would solve that as Rondo would be making the decisions.

2. The two would recapture the magic from their days together at Oak Hill Academy.

3. If there really is a movement afoot to trade Rondo, then both 1&2 go out the window.

4. Smith has been used as a power forward for the bulk of his career. Hoops stats.com breaks a player's season down into won-lost-draw in individual match ups. This season, of the 25 match ups Smith has won, 14, or more than half have come against small forwards. Conversely, of the 14 match ups he has lost, 11 have been against power forwards. This tends to indicate that Smith would serve us better at the 3.

5. In his post on Celtics blog last Friday, "Mid-season player profile: Jeff Green" Josh Zavadil gave strong evidence that Green is much better at the 4 than the 3. If the trade for Smith is Bass/ Green, why would you trade both of your healthy power forwards for one who arguably should be playing at the small, which of course is already occupied by Pierce?

6. The headline numbers say that Smith is more productive than Green, but he also plays 11 more minutes per game. If you look at the per 36 minute numbers that adjust for the discrepancy, Smith still has a slight lead. But I would argue that there is not $7M worth of difference. (More on salary below)

Smith vs. Green - Points 17.5/15.0 - Rebounds 8.7/4.8 - Assists 4.1/1.4 - Steals 1.2/.9 - Blocks 2.2/1.0 - Turnovers 3.1/2.1 - FG% .460/.443 - Three pt. % .354/.340 - FT% .500/.815

7. Smith is thought to be exceptional on both ends. According to Synergy Smith gives you .85 ppp on offense and .78 ppp on defense. And Green? .94 offense and .77 defense.

8. Many will cite Green/ Bass being inconsistent this season. Smith has had 13 games this year where he put up 21 or more points (including 3 - 30 point nights). But he also had 13 where he scored 15 or less (5 of those under 9 points). It is hard to make a case that this is rock steady play.

9. One can not just ignore Smith getting a suspension by the team for detrimental conduct.

10. Smith makes $13.2M but there is a 15% trade kicker. That makes it $15.2M that would show up on the Celts payroll. (Hence the $7M difference I listed in #6) He is a free agent at the end of the season wanting a max contract of roughly $19M. If he can be convinced to stay without the max, there is still a minimum which is 105% of this year's contract or $15.96 for next year with probable 7.5% raises each year thereafter. In 2016, that would put him at $19.5M.

11. If one can be happy with the salary hit and convinced that Smith should come to Boston, I would suggest that it should be to play alongside Green (at the 4) and Smith (at the 3) as the future, rather than trade one (two actually as we can't forget Bass) for the other. It would probably be better to wait and chase him in free agency in the summer.