A bold, nearly unstomachable "win now then rebuild" trade:

[Fan from VT]

Rondo, JO, Wafer
for
Nash, Hill

Nash would make our offense unstoppable, and he's having one of his best years this year. He has size, passing, and deadly shooting, all of which age well. Our D is based from KG down, and wouldn't suffer as much. Rondo entices the Suns to realize they need to rebuild, and Rondo is a legit piece they'd have locked up. Hill can play 2-4, and is still playing great and would fit in seamlessly. Don't like having to give up JO's size, but he's been injured anyway. Baby would play 5 with Hill at the 4 for stretches with Shaq and Perk anchoring the 5 spot mostly.

Additionally, Nash and Hill fit with the 2012 FA window; Pierce would be the only one signed in summer 2012, at which time we'd offer max deals to Derron Williams and Dwight Howard to see if they want to run a great 5 years of elite pick and roll ball in Boston.

[pearljammer10]

Quite possibly the dumbest idea Ive seen on here.... And believe me, there have been tons of dumb ideas.

[Fafnir]

I don't think Nash is a better player than Rondo, so I think this would really hurt the C's.

[LakersFan_33]

Dumb idea - Such old players you'd be getting in return. Not sure why you would trade Rondo.

[BballTim]

  Worsens our defense and takes away our depth at center to possibly improve on offense, when we're already leading the league in eFG% and TS% with Rondo, all for the "benefit" of getting Rondo's salary off the books? Yikes.

[Snakehead]

Quite possibly the dumbest idea Ive seen on here.... And believe me, there have been tons of dumb ideas.

Amen.  Holy crap we win now with Grant Hill and Nash?  Rondo is much better than Nash.

[Roy H.]

Enough with the "dumb idea" posts, please.  These violate our rules regarding respecting others.  If you don't like a trade idea, disagree civilly, or just bite your tongue.

[Roy H.]

Negatives:  Our defense gets worse; chemistry would be an issue at least initially; we'd become older and less athletic; we'd lose interior depth and defense up front

Positives:  Nash is at least as good of a passer as Rondo and he's an amazing shooter; he's a better free throw shooter and scores a lot more points; Hill is probably better than anybody else on our bench

I'd pass, because bottom line I don't think this trade is likely to make us significantly better this season.  It could make us a little better, a little worse, or a lot worse, but I don't see a situation where it makes us a lot better.

[Chris]

While I am on the fence on whether this helps us this year, the value of the trade is not good enough.  Rondo has a ton more value than Nash and Hill at this point.  We would have to get back at least another asset or two to even consider a deal like that.

[hwangjini_1]

nice try. blogs are a great place to try out new, exciting, odd, or even less than brilliant ideas. tp for the try.

no. i say no to such a trade since it...

1. reduces the chances of the celtics winning in the short term (read: this year.)

the players given up by the celtics are better than they get in return. and, rondo runs the celtics better than nash would since his skills complement the scoring of the big three.

2. with this celtics team, there is really no need to "choose" between now and later. assuming good health, no team in the nba can beat the celtics as far as i can see. so, it is not as if the celtics are just "a player away" and HAVE to make some sort of move.

so.... why reduce the chances of winning now with such a trade?

nice try, but no bananas on this idea. 

[Rondo_is_better]

I say no quite adamantly.

[Fan from VT]

Maybe I'm too soured on Rondo right now. I just think that if Nash is on this team last year, we beat the Lakers fairly easily. I do think he is that much better on offense, and PG is not the basis of our defense. On offense, I think Nash can do everything Rondo can, but can do many more things: free throws, 3 pointers, midrange, etc. He needs to be double teams; rondo can be sagged off.

[drza44]

Because of the future aspects (i.e. Rondo's youth, manageable contract, etc) I wouldn't do the deal as is.  That said, I pretty strongly disagree with those that say this wouldn't be an immediate help to the team.  

I understand chemistry issues with big in-season moves, but honestly I don't think it would apply at all here.  This Celtics team has already been conditioned to play off-the-ball while Rondo creates and distributes, so I don't see where the learning curve would be that steep going to Nash.

But on the other hand, Nash is WAY better as a finisher than Rondo.  I mean, orders of magnitude better.  And that improvement would be essentially directly applicable, as Nash can and would murder the defenses that are designed to play off of Rondo's shooting touch.

And defensively I think the impact is minimal.  Rondo's disruption on the perimeter is cool, but in the scheme of things doesn't have a huge impact on our defense as a whole.  Our starting unit with Nash would still be extremely strong defensively.  And with Perk looking at a come back within the next month, Jermaine's loss is stomachable as well.

In a lot of ways, Nash's offensive impact is like a mirror image of KG's defensive.  With a straight Rondo for Nash swap I think the Celtics would shoot to the top of the offensive e4fficiency list, and have a strong shot at finishing #1 on both offense and defense.  Would definitely make the team better this year, IMO.


ETA: Oh, and I didn't even mention Hill, who would immediately be the best back-up SF of this era.  He would have a sizeable positive impact on the team as well.

[Fan from VT]

Now, would you do it if Howard and Williams' agents told you that they both wanted to team up if one team had the cap space in 2012?

[Birdbrain]

Now, would you do it if Howard and Williams' agents told you that they both wanted to team up if one team had the cap space in 2012?

No but, then I never thought that was a realistic idea in the first place.  It's not like they have to come here even if what you say ever had the chance of being true, which it doesn't.

Rondo is a top 3 PG in the league and Nash is a horrible defender.  Rondo is also a better passer than Nash and makes all the C's around him much better than they are.  KG especially.


The C's wouldn't make it out of the East. 

There are some interesting posts in this thread.  I look forward to 2 years of 0% chance happening trades to get Howard to Boston.