People seems to have memory loss regarding this trade.
Perkins was on one leg. He had zero lift, zero lateral movement and resembled more of an extra on 'The Walking Dead' than a starting caliber center on a championship contender.
We got Green to back up an aging Paul Pierce against the Heat and Lebron. We also got Nate Robinson who was pretty good in a few playoff games. We got the piece that made this trade at the time- a landslide victory for the Celtics....Nenad Krstic.
Now unfortunately, fate had us
*losing Jeff Green to a heart ailment later down the track.
*Have Krstic get injured just as he started to 'get' our defensive system.
*Have the lockout occur and lose Krstic to the Euro-league
*lose Shaq permanently
*Have JO injure BREAK his wrist in one of the first games of the playoffs.
*We then lost Rondo's arm to D Wade's steroid abuse/rage.
In the space of 4 months.
A one legged angry pirate named Perkins wasn't taking us ANYWHERE. Myself and other fans of the trade believe it was more important to get a backup SF to relieve Pierce at the time. We had Krstic and Jermaine Oneal AND the hope that Shaq would come back. All three dominos fell and we got extremely unlucky with Rondo going down.
Danny could have waited to sign and trade Perk, but Perk could have also gone down again trying to over-extend himself...really who knows?
To me, saying that trading Perkins cost us a championship is a combination of bitterness and delusion. A string of horrid luck cost us a title.
Would we have beaten the Mavs? Who knows, but Perkins would have had zero to do with it.