I Hope He Has A Plan

As a person who doesn't like change, I am never a fan when my teams make moves at the trading deadlines, regardless of the sport. There are a lot of moving parts and since the deadline comes during the middle of the season, by this point I have usually come to like the players involved. Therefore, when the Celtics made a flurry of moves before 3 o'clock yesterday, my initial instinct was to be unhappy. To recap: first they traded Nate Robinson and Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City for Jeff Green, Nenad Kristic and a draft pick. Then they shipped Luke Harangody and Semih Erden to Cleveland for a second round draft pick (meaning they gave them away) and ended the day by shipping Marquis Daniels to Sacramento for straight cash. When they were first announced I was not happy, but I decided to wait a few hours, take a step back and think the moves through. After doing all that... I still hate the trades.

To be fair, it is just one move I really, deeply hate. The Marquis Daniels move doesn't effect the team, because he wasn't playing again this season with an injury. And the shipping out of Semih and Luke only bothers me as a Notre Dame man, not for any basketball reasoning (and no, the potential signing of Troy Murphy does not soften the blow). Even if they had simply let Nate Robinson go I would have been ok, but the trading of Kendrick bothers the hell out of me. For the entire offseason, the mantra was that "Had Perk not blown out his knee, we would have won game 7. This group deserves the chance to see what they can do when everyone is healthy." I was totally on board with that logic, which is why getting rid of him makes no sense. This team won its Championship on the strength of rebounding and tough defense and trading Kendrick makes the Celtics weaker in both those areas. And I'm not alone in thinking this. Reports are members of the Bulls and Heat were thrilled to hear Perkins is now in the Western Conference, which should tell you all you need to know about how smart this deal is.

There were reports the team doubted they would be able to re-sign Perkins following this season, but frankly I think an 18th Championship would trump those concerns. Also, who knows how the NBA financial picture is going to look following the lockout (which is coming). Besides, Kendrick took a below-market deal last time and there are no indications he was going to demand a ludicrous deal, just closer to fair market value which, honestly, the team owed him. To trade him because of what might happen feels short-sighted. The Celtics biggest advantage going into the season was a glut of big men and in one day the Celtics shipped out their starting center, third center and third forward. There goes that advantage. Now they have to actively hope Shaquille and Jermaine O'Neal can come up big in June, two players who haven't been healthy at the same time yet this year. Awesome.

I'm also concerned about what this is going to do to team chemistry, which is crucial in basketball. It doesn't matter if two guys on a football team don't like each other, because that is two in a group of sixty. But, the small roster size makes it incredibly important in basketball and by all accounts this Celtics team really liked each other. Reports out of the locker room yesterday said Perk spent the day crying, the veterans were furious at the trade and Rajon Rondo (Perks best friend) was walking around in a zombie-like state all day. As such, it was no wonder they came out in a daze for last night's game in Denver, which they eventually lost. For a guy like Danny Ainge, who played a very long time in the league and should know how important chemistry is, to ignore something like that has me really concerned.

And that, I think, is the heart of why I don't like these moves: even though he put together a team that won a title, I still don't fully trust that Danny Ainge knows what he is doing. If you take a moment to think back through his tenure, it is a litany of bad drafts (Marcus Banks) and missed player signings. (Stephon Marbury, anyone?) Even the announcement that Ainge was taking over as President of the team was poorly-timed as he did it right before a critical playoff game where he announced major roster changes were coming (the Celtics lost that night). Basically, he's had the Allen trade (where he gave up the rights to Jeff Green) and the Garnett trade (which people still doubt he could have pulled off if a former teammate wasn't on the other end), and after those he was able to sit back and let the free agents come to him. I'll give him credit for acquiring all the young pieces needed to make those moves but much like I question how good Doc Rivers would be coaching a group of young players, I question if Danny would still be in the job without McHale to basically hand him KG.

Now, I'm not jumping ship and I'm sure the first time Green scores 25 point I'll be thrilled, but that doesn't mean I won't miss Perk as a player and a person. And if Dwight Howard scores 50 points on us after Shaq fouls out in 20 minutes during a big playoff game, Danny should expect to be flooded with 'I told you so' emails.