With Indy taking another center prospect, you have to wonder if Sabonis or Turner is on the trading block. Turner looked awful in the series against us in the playoffs. He has kinda consistently underperformed in the playoffs for them.
Could Ainge look to move Smart and Yabu for Turner after getting Kemba to sign?
Id rather have Sabonis
So would I and probably so would the Pacers and Celtics. That's probably the reason in trading Turner and going with Bitadze and Sabonis, because everyone sees Sabonis is a better player than Turner.
Celtics would be trading an elite smaller defender that finally showed he can hit threes at an good rate for a very good big defender who has shown he can hit a three at a good rate.
I think it's a pretty fair trade. Gives Indy a tremendous pairing with Dipo in the backcourt while they move Sabonis to the starting role and Bitadze to the bench big role. Meanwhile, Boston gets the rim protecting big they covet that can also stretch the floor. Win win.
I've brought up Turner in other threads - I would love to have him on the Cs, even at the expense of Smart. When I saw Indy take Bitadze, I immediately assumed Indy would be looking to move one of their bigs. He is making $18m/yr for the next four years so that is fairly reasonable for a player of his caliber and position. I imagine he still has some room to grow, as well.
I have to imagine Indy would love a player like Smart playing next to Oladipo, too. It really does seem like a win-win for everybody - even if we have to give up an impact player like Smart.
Edit: The Pacers would also probably consider a Brown for Sabonis swap, but I don't think we want to go down that road. This might make a good poll question: Brown for Sabonis or Smart for Turner?
Poll
Topic: Kemba Walker (Kemba to formalize agreement on Sunday, pg 40) (Read 76828 times)