Thursday, February 7, 2013
More K.G. to Clippers speculation
By Nick Borges
There was a report earlier this week claiming the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Clippers had begun discussions regarding a potential trade that would send Kevin Garnett to the West, with Eric Bledsoe and Caron Butler heading East. Multiple reports after the initial item claim the two teams have held no talks about a potential deal.
Now we get this news from Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe who writes: "Further speculation had the Clippers beefing up their offer to the Celtics for Garnett, replacing Caron Butler with young center DeAndre Jordan to go with point guard Eric Bledsoe. But an NBA source said Wednesday the sides have not discussed any deals, much less specifics of a Garnett trade."
Both teams may be say nothing is in the works, however this time of year every team is calling around the league, so some discussions may have taken place.
Garnett owns a no-trade provision in his contract and the Clippers are the only team, which would get his approval since he has a home in Malibu.
Chad Ford
Garnett to Clippers possible?"I think it's the sort of deal that makes sense for both sides. Clippers are going to lose Bledsoe, the Celtics chances of winning a title without Rondo have gone down dramatically ... so Ainge begins to see if he can get future assets for his stars. KG could put the Clippers over the top in the West and Bledsoe is one of the most coveted young players on the trade block. Doesn't necessarily mean the end for Rondo ... just a major asset for Boston. Unless KG's blocking this deal, I'm not sure what's stopping them."
Bradford Doolittle
Garnett top 10 interior defender"Overall, the Celtics rank just 20th in defensive PER against the frontcourt positions, but Garnett makes the leaderboard based on the best overall RAPM of any qualifying big man. However, RAPM is the one metric that relies on multi-season data, so it may be slow to detect a sudden slippage. In any event, it would be great to run these rankings based on data from 8-9 years ago. Who would have topped the list, Garnett or Duncan? What about Shaquille O'Neal or Ben Wallace?"
