Sporting News: C's targeting Griffin, will make major deal soon

[Snakehead]

The old my uncle works at Nintendo.

[walker834]

johnson, bradley and the 18 is a steal for griffin if true.

[WolfofCausewayStreet]

no way its a steal

[celticsclay]

UNVERIFIED REPORT:

According to this guy Mike, there is an agreement:

Deadmik3™ ‏@StonewallSieve  9s9 seconds ago Watertown, MA
#Griffin to the #Celtics for Johnson, Bradley & the 2018 Brooklyn Nets pick. Details are being fine-tuned. Expect official announcement soon

Take it for what it's worth.

I thought this guy was in Las Vegas for "scout school", and he's now posting from Watertown, MA? LOL

the nonstop skepticism doesn't really add anything. I think everyone gets this is not super likely, but it is harmless fun on a slow news day to think about a hypothetical trade. Why the need to constantly mock the exercise?

It adds fun. For me. I think hacks like this one aren't mocked even nearly enough around here these days.

Well I mean I guess you should know a bit more about Twitter if you want to nonstop mock people for using it. I work for one of the larger health care organization in the country as a social media manager and it is my job to understand how it works.

 In general there is tons of garbage, on Twitter and anyone can say anything. However, someone that only follows 350 accounts and has 11k followers (with the exception that they are purchased bots and this guys engagement suggests they are not) is definitely considered a strong influencer. I have not gone through the guys entire account to see why so many people follow the guy, but he has obviously contributed content of value to people to gain that kind of following (many national organizations, legitimate news personalities etc all have less than this). 

On top of that, it would be pretty unusual for someone that has built up this big a following to just completely fabricate stuff randomly and risk losing the account he has built up. It is not a situation where he is getting paid for clicks on his tweet or paid for traffic to his twitter handle.

As a point of comparison I was once paid by the International Diabetes Federation to be a speaker at their annual conference entirely based off the content I put out on Twitter related to a niche audience of diabetes care. That account had only 2k followers.

This doesn't make anything this guy has said more or less true in the long run, but he is someone that has contributed value in the past to Twitter and isn't some 12 year old plugging stuff into the trade machine.

[Dino Pitino]

johnson, bradley and the 18 is a steal for griffin if true.

I'd say it's fair, not a steal. A steal would be no Johnson. EDIT: Nevermind, I misread it as Brown. Whew. Yeah, that'd be a steal.

[Jiri Welsch]

Just clarifying the tweet I posted:

This guy apparently has a friend who works with the Celtics, and is not Keith Smith from RealGM.

He's pretty self-effacing about his "insider" status and is just posting what he's hearing.

I'm pretty sure his friend would have been fired by now. The Celts are notoriously tight-lipped.

I agree. That's why I'm caveating all my posts. I just thought it might be a fun thing to discuss this afternoon.

Sorry.

[walker834]

johnson, bradley and the 18 is a steal for griffin if true.

I'd say it's fair, not a steal. A steal would be no Johnson.

i would have rathered give up ko and crowder. I fear we found a middle ground with amir and bradley.

now just dont give up smart or brown for westbrook..... it's a steal in that sense if we got blake and keep those guys.

[Monkhouse]

Thing is with these superstars/Allstars, does anyone honestly believe Westbrook, Cousins, and Griffin would re-sign here?

I have no doubt DMC, if given the chance to flourish and carve his name out as a top 5 MVP caliber player thanks to Stevens, would adamantly re-sign with us, but would Griffin/Westbrook follow suit? Two players with athletic jaw dropping skill-sets, and two players who are heavily invested in commercials, media, and have businesses/homes in LA, may seem iffy in my eyes.

[Evantime34]

Just clarifying the tweet I posted:

This guy apparently has a friend who works with the Celtics, and is not Keith Smith from RealGM.

He's pretty self-effacing about his "insider" status and is just posting what he's hearing.

I'm pretty sure his friend would have been fired by now. The Celts are notoriously tight-lipped.

I could see the Celtics employee purposely feeding the guy false info in order to keep people talking about the Celtics.

Or I could see the Celtics employee feeding him real info so that it would be believable when this guy leaks false info in the future.

[Gainesville Celtic]

Thoughts on this
1. I'm extremely skeptical of a report that on one hand says a deal is close and on the other indicates we won't give up a Brooklyn pick. I just don't believe we can get a deal done without a least one Brooklyn pick.

2. The idea of Rudy Gay as part of the deal makes me happy. If LAC adds Gay then I think there is a higher chance we can keep Crowder

3. I expect Bradley to be the best player we trade away, maybe I'm reading too much into the fact that he didn't come to the Durant or the Horford meeting.

4. The C's can create around $12.5 MM in cap space by sending Zizic and Yabu overseas, pulling Zeller's QO and waiving John Holland. I think this could play a factor in a deal.

5. People are sleeping on Blake. We haven't had anyone like him in transition in a long time. He's a plus rebounder which we need (his numbers have recently dipped due to playing with DeAndre). Griffin can handle the ball, create for others and is probably better than any player on the C's in the pick and roll since I've been alive. He's underrated on the defensive end becauseh e came into the league as a poor defender.

6. Here is a trade I think makes sense for everyone, I'm not sure which picks we would need to send where though
http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=j2m953n

Agree with most everyhting here Evantime... a few additions/departures:

1. While LAC would love to get a BKN #1 -- their window is now (and their GM is in win-now mode) so I don't think it's inconceivable that they value quantity/quality of players coming back over "the future".

2. For SAC I think they'd be fine largely to just move on from Gay, but would be smart to clear "bad" contracts or redundant players off their books for the trouble of helping out. Though their front office isn't the most dynamic, so who knows.

Therefore I'm curious if something like this wouldn't satifsy all parties:

LAC IN: Rudy Gay, Avery Bradley, Jonas Jerebko, LAC 2019 #1, LAC 2017 #2
LAC OUT: Blake Griffin, Paul Pierce

Bradley might a bit redundant, but maybe LAC then moves JJ Reddick or flips Bradley for a backup big and a future #1; they shore up the SF spot, and add flexibility to go with more 3 guard (CP, JJ, AB) lineups with either a traditional big (Speights, Brice Johnson) at 4 or guys like Gay/Jerebko the 4 with DeAndre.

SAC IN: Terry Rozier, Amir Johnson, James Young, RJ Hunter, BOS 2018 or 2019 #1
SAC OUT: Rudy Gay, Kosta Koufos, Ben McLemore

IMO LAC and SAC could swap out some combo of Bradley/Rozier/Amir/Jerebko. I think LAC would value getting a bench and SAC would like a good young PG (where they only have Collison) and clear out playing time for Afflalo and Richardson by dealing McLemore and get Koufos' redundant salary off their books.

BOS IN: Griffin, Koufos, McLemore, Pierce
BOS OUT: Bradley, Amir, Rozier, Young, Hunter, BOS 2018 or 2019 #1, LAC 2019 #1, LAC 2017 #2



Other poss. pieces to include:

-- MIN 2017 #2
-- 2017 swap: This is just an idea... but PHI has the right to swap picks with SAC next year. We could propose that (say Top 2 protected) SAC has the right to swap with us AFTER PHI exercises thier right. The worst we'd end up with is PHI or SAC's pick... neither will be much worse than BKN's if we protect it top 2, but it's a little incentive for SAC. Maybe too big a gamble for us -- but better than moving the BKN pick altogether.

I like your trade, I think giving away that many young pieces is the only way we can avoid giving up a Brooklyn pick.

As to them being in win now mode and not having a need for picks, picks are the most fungible assets in the NBA. The Brooklyn pick is probably much easier to move in a future trade to replace Blake's star power than a bunch of smaller value young players.

You and I (and a bunch of other people) know that -- but Rivers (GM version) has shown that he undervalues them quite a bit.

My guess is Rivers is done when CP3 is, so that he's viewing the team as a 2-3 year window to maximize. Though that's just my guess, their FA signings would support that.

And they have really no real way to build a bench (their weakness for the last 2-3 years) except through a Blake or Jordan trade.


(Candidly I think i'd still run it back w/ CP3/Blake/Deandre if i were LAC; but shaking things up just a little might not be the worst thing for them either. They played well w/o Blake last year, so they may be more willing than before to build up their talent at the expense of elite talent)

[A Future of Stevens]

Thing is with these superstars/Allstars, does anyone honestly believe Westbrook, Cousins, and Griffin would re-sign here?

I have no doubt DMC, if given the chance to flourish and carve his name out as a top 5 MVP caliber player thanks to Stevens, would adamantly re-sign with us, but would Griffin/Westbrook follow suit? Two players with athletic jaw dropping skill-sets, and two players who are heavily invested in commercials, media, and have businesses/homes in LA, may seem iffy in my eyes.

This is the exact thing I am terrified of. Remember when the lakers gave up Bynum for Howard and he left the next year? Nothing Is for certain.

[hwangjini_1]

The old my uncle works at Nintendo.

ask him how mario is doing.

[hwangjini_1]

no way its a steal

punctuation is our friend.

no way! its a steal!

no way its a steal!

which is it please?

[Monkhouse]

Thing is with these superstars/Allstars, does anyone honestly believe Westbrook, Cousins, and Griffin would re-sign here?

I have no doubt DMC, if given the chance to flourish and carve his name out as a top 5 MVP caliber player thanks to Stevens, would adamantly re-sign with us, but would Griffin/Westbrook follow suit? Two players with athletic jaw dropping skill-sets, and two players who are heavily invested in commercials, media, and have businesses/homes in LA, may seem iffy in my eyes.

This is the exact thing I am terrified of. Remember when the lakers gave up Bynum for Howard and he left the next year? Nothing Is for certain.

The thing is Cousins/Westbrook are very volatile and passionate players who want to win, so if put in the best position to succeed, I could see them re-signing. But Griffin has television deals, commercials, endorsements all set up in LA, so I can't really see him basking in the morning glory of Hollywood notoriety to transition over to Boston, a sports town with a few quirky intricacies, and people with accents who love clam chow-dah lol. (The last part is just a teasing joke, don't get it twisted please.) 

But as for Bynum and Howard, those two players are just a bunch of !@#$!@, and I wouldn't want any of those two players near the Celtics organization!

[Jiri Welsch]

no way its a steal

punctuation is our friend.

no way! its a steal!

no way its a steal!

which is it please?

I'm guessing the former.