I'm absolutely shocked to see this. I know it's the age of sports reason and the Patriots and Red Sox have taught us it's not about loyalty, it's about winning, but here's the thing. We just won the title in Year 1 of what was supposed to be a 3-5 year window. Next year is the year we were picturing as the year where we had a legit chance to win it all. But we already got one! Just because we won one, we're ready to give up the shot at winning next year? Because, for the record, that's what this trade would do - give up a shot at repeating. I like Mr October's comments the most, I think, but a lot of people have (thankfully) been dousing the flames of switching things up now.
As has been pointed out, both of these guys are extremely inconsistent. They both flash star potential and have great skill sets, but it never comes together for either. Even Phoenix knows Barbosa is not a point guard, and not big enough or a good enough defender to play the 2 beside Nash. Rondo would mask Barbosa's defensive problems to an extent (Barbosa routinely gambles for steals, something that the Celtics defense does not do - which is why the steals record in Game 6 was so surprising - because the defense relies on everybody filling their roles) but he's still too small to put out there with Rondo. Picture our playoff run from this season. Ray was matched up against Joe Johnson, Wally Szczerbiak, Rip Hamilton and Kobe Bryant. Which one of those guys wouldn't absolutely abuse Leandro Barbosa based purely on the fact that Barbosa is only 6'3"?
Both guys are good bench players, and if we were trading a bench player, or even a starter at a position where we had a lot of depth, I'd consider this. But we're taking away one of our core six for two more guys to add depth, something we've already got a ton of, but not depth at our two biggest positions of need (for depth) - point guard and center. Why would we do it? (This is not even to mention that Diaw makes 9 mil the next 3 seasons, and probably won't be walking away from his $9 mil option in year 4, same with Barbosa with his 6.1-6.6-7.1 and 7.6 option, while Ray's contract expires in 2010.)
I see why Phoenix would do this - they have at best one more chance to win a title with Nash, Shaq and Amare (that's why people were talking about an Amare for Wallace and filler deal - they need guys who can win now). But for us? This makes no sense. It hurts our defense while providing minimal if any bonus on offense, plus we have to redo the whole chemistry thing we perfected last season. While the idea of bringing in more good, hungry players makes sense, nothing about Barbosa or Diaw suggests to me they're hungry to win a championship. I honestly don't think either could care too much less about an NBA title.
We want to trade the third best player on the NBA champion for the 6th and 7th men on a team that lost in the first round? What?