Peter May published an article with several targets for the Celtics either in the trade market or via free agency. I have to give him credit for putting names out there instead of vague notions of a "clear value-add kind of guy" or some other sort of cop-out phrase (guilty). With that said, naming names makes it easy to shoot ideas down, so I'm in the mood to fire away. Here are May's ideas and my thoughts on each (read his thoughts first).
- Josh Childress: May starts out with this line - "The Suns signed him to a five-year, $33.5 million deal last year and already are regretting the move." - I didn't stop reading there but I could have. The Cetlics will likely be willing to sacrifice a little of the future (picks, unproven players) for a shot at a title, but I doubt they'd sign up for something that long term without it being a star or potential star player.
- Richard Hamilton: Not a new name by any means. I just can't fathom a trade that matches salaries and makes sense for the Celtics, so they'll wait and see if/when he gets bought out and make an offer then.
- Troy Murphy: See Hamilton, Rip. The Celtics just don't have $12M in salaries they are willing to unload to match Murphy's deal (a testament to Danny's wise spending by the way). I agree with May and others that he's probably headed to Orlando after a buyout.
- James Posey: Now we get a little interesting. Posey isn't the player he once was and as May states "might have already played his best basketball." That said, I think he has a little bit of a Hedo-Turkoglu-back-to-Orlando sort of appeal where he could fit right in to a system that he knows and guys that he connects with and contribute a little of that old magic (so to speak). May offers this idea - Quis and Nate Robinson for Posey. It works salary wise and actually saves the Pacers money because Quis comes off the books this year. He also offers up the idea of Jermaine O'Neal for Posey but I'm still holding out a glimmer of hope that JON will eventually give us something, if only for a few games when it counts.
- Ramon Sessions: He's got talent but he doesn't fill a need and I think other clubs might be more interested in him than we are. On the other hand, if you expanded the obvious "Quis for Parker" deal to include Nate and other pieces and threw in a pick, maybe you could find a mix that works for both parties.
- Of course it wouldn't be a Peter May article without a snarky reference to Antoine Walker and Rasheed Wallace. So hats off for that.
I guess you can see how difficult this is going to be for Ainge. He said recently "Right now there's a list of about 15 or 20 different options and go from there over the weekend" and I'm sure the conversations will only pick up next week. Still, the most likely scenario is that the C's (and most teams) won't find anything worth making a move on right now and wait to see what happens with buyouts. The trade deadline is often much ado about nada and just about everything is on hold until the Melo-drama unfolds. But that doesn't mean it isn't fun to discuss.