Rick Bonnell from the Charlotte Observer checked in on the trade rumor from this afternoon and has an interesting twist on it. Perhaps the Cats actually want Rasheed Wallace instead. Here's his take:
There's a report on espn.com that the Charlotte Bobcats and Boston Celtics are in trade talks involving Glen "Big Baby'' Davis. I'm told the two teams have talked, but I wouldn't be so certain Davis would be the guy the Bobcats covet.
The Celtics need another guard who can knock down shots, which brings D.J. Augustin (or possibly Flip Murray) to mind. Obviously, the Bobcats would love to get Rasheed Wallace, a longtime favorite of coach Larry Brown, who hasn't played particularly well of late in Boston.
The beauty of Wallace in Charlotte would be his wide skill set, You could pair him with any of three big men -- Tyson Chandler, Nazr Mohammed or Boris Diaw -- and he could blend with whatever strengths and weaknesses the other big man had.
First of all, it sounds like there's at least some fire to this smoke if we have multiple reports that the two sides have talked. Of course (as you can already tell) these things can be fluid and all we are getting is blurry snapshots from well beyond camera range. But you take what you can get sometimes. My thoughts after the break.
Obviously I'm pretty shocked that Rasheed Wallace's name would come up in a trade rumor. I always assumed that trading him a few months after signing him would be a bad precedent with future free agents willing to take less than market value to land in Boston for a shot at the title (see Daniels, Marquis). On the other hand, you could make a strong argument that Sheed got exactly what the market would allow and was probably overpaid at that.
Clearly things haven't worked out as we had hoped with Sheed. He comes as advertised, so no real surprises here (too many 3's, not in prime condition anymore) but I had (and still have) hopes that once the playoffs rolled around, he would prove his true value as a veteran who's been through the fire a few times.
From the Bobcats standpoint, it could make some sense. Larry Brown favors the veterans that "know how to play the right way" over younger players. Maybe he thinks he could get the most out of Sheed - just like old times.
The key question for both Boston and Charlotte here might be "does an out of shape Sheed have more short term upside than a relatively in shape Glen Davis?" The answer might be "if he's motivated to" which nobody really knows the answer to.
As a side comment, I wonder how KG and Pierce would feel about dealing away the guy they spent so much time recruiting this offseason for a backup point guard. Then again, Ainge seems willing to trade Ray Allen (for the right price) and perhaps KG and Pierce aren't all that impressed with Sheed after all - not that they would ever say so.
Anyway, these are just idle thoughts on a variation of a rumor that may or may not have any merit.
I also tracked down David Arnott from Rufus on Fire to get a scouting report on DJ Augustin. Here is his report.
He's a score-first point. I've compared his ceiling to Damon Stoudemire. Last season, playing alongside Raymond Felton much of the time, he was a great shooter from both three point range and from the free throw line, and even though he's small, he was Devin Harris-esque when driving the lane. As solid an offensive player as he was, he struggled (and struggles) mightily on defense. Even average sized guards can back him down, and he's short enough that he's not good at contesting shots.
This year, Larry Brown has been in his head, trying to mold him into a more traditional distributing point guard, and he was terrible in the early part of the season. More recently, he's been coming around. I think he's actually a lesser total player for Brown's influence, but a slightly better offense facilitator. He's still young enough that if he gets a coach who will nurture his strengths instead of trying to make him something he's not, I can see him fulfilling that Stoudemire prediction. As for what he'd do on the Celtics, I imagine he'd mostly fill Eddie House's role, with the primary edge on Eddie being that he'd be better able to bring the ball up the floor and dribble away from pressure. He's probably not quite the shooter House is, but you could play him alongside Rondo some and have him work off screens Jesus Shuttleworth style.
I think I like what I hear, with the obvious exception of the defensive issue. The hope here is that Doc can set him free from whatever doghouse Larry Brown has him in and he'll feel more comfortable doing what he does best instead of worrying about being molded into another Rondo. Also, if he gives even a little effort on defense, the team defense (that is when the team feels the urge to play 48 minutes of it) could theoretically cover for him.
Of course, now that we've looked at this from every angle I can think of, Danny will probably do something completely different than this (if anything at all). But that's all part of the fun we have this time of year every year.