CELTICS TRADE ALL ABOUT SPACING
Spacing. The term is used a lot in the basketball world. Spacing on the court. Cap space. Roster space. The latest Celtics trade was made for all three reasons. Taking them one by one:
Court spacing. One of the Celtics’ problems has been they essentially had three very similar players. Paul Pierce, Ricky Davis and Tony Allen. (Rookie Gerald Green is also the same type player.) All three are athletic wingmen who can drive to the basket. Pierce and Davis are good but not high percentage shooters. At the end of games Pierce is regularly double and even triple teamed because teams don’t fear the kick-out pass. This changes with Wally Szczerbiak. Very few teams will be willing to leave him alone and we saw this in his first game against Sacramento. When he went to the corner his man was right with him whereas they would have laid off Davis a bit. This creates spacing on the court for Pierce driving and Al Jefferson and Kendrick Perkins inside.
Cap space. Although Szczerbiak makes more money than Davis, being able to dump Mark Blount’s contract was a godsend for the Celts. Michael Olowokandi is in the last year of his deal and will not be resigned. One of Danny Ainge’s biggest mistakes was this contract and now he’s been able to extricate himself from it.
Roster space. The Celts had too many players of similar ability. This is never easy for a coach. One night a certain player plays well, then he falters and someone else does OK. But then he falters. And on and on and on. Getting rid of Blount enables Jefferson and Perkins to play more. Moving Marcus Banks allows Orien Greene to claim the backup point guard spot. While Justin Reed was included in the deal to make the money work (no deal can have more than a 25% difference in the value of contracts changing teams), trading him allows Ryan Gomes to step forward as a backup. (Quick aside – Doc and Danny – Gomes is better than Brian Scalabrine but we’ll leave that for another day.)
Is this a good deal for the Celtics? Overall yes. Ricky Davis is a very good player and will probably do very well in Minnesota. Marcus Banks may come back to haunt them – did someone say Chauncey Billups? But overall this was a good deal because the Celts created spacing on the floor, in their salary structure and in their roster.
BOSTON'S BEST BLOG 