Celtics Trade

The Celtics and Timberwolves made a trade last night involving seven players and three draft picks. My initial reaction is to not like this trade because it involved sending Ricky Davis who had quickly become my favorite Celtics player.

Davis came to the Celtics from Cleveland with a reputation as a bad actor. During his time in Boston nothing could have been further from the truth. I'm sad to see Ricky go but I am willing to look at this trade logically and dispassionately.

Mark Blount went from the Celtics and the Timberwolves sent Michael Olowokandi to Boston. This is basically a you take my disappointing big man who can score (Blount) for your disappointing big man who can rebound (Kandyman). Big win for the Celtics here because Mark Blount's contract is awful (4 more years and $28 million - yikes!) while the Kandyman is just signed through this season.

Marcus Banks, Justin Reed and two second round picks from the Celtics for Dwayne Jones and a first round pick. Banks was completely expendable from the Celtics point of view because of the development of Delonte West (my new favorite Celtic now that Ricky Davis is gone) and Reed is flotsam. Dwayne Jones is the jetsam from the Minnesota point of view. The key here is the first round pick which is another big win for the Celtics. This has the potential to be Bob McAdoo for ML Carr in which the Celtics also got Detroit's first round pick (which turned out to be the number one in the draft and which the Celtics traded for Robert Parish and the number three pick which turned out to be Kevin McHale). How ironic would it be if the next Kevin McHale-type player for the Celtics is made possible by none other than Timberwolves VP Kevin McHale?

That brings us to Ricky Davis and Wally Szczerbiak. Davis is a shooter who can also drive to create his offense while Wally is more of a pure shooter. The contracts favor Minnesota big-time. Wally has three years and $36-million remaining while Ricky has just 2-years and $13 million left (a bargain!). The 28-year old Wally is averaging 20.1 points per game while the 26-year old Davis is averaging 19.7 points per game. The big advantage is in defense. Coach Doc Rivers thinks enough of Davis' defense to make him the key defender on the opposing team's best scorer late in the game. Wally is the guy other teams attack with match-ups late in the game. Make no mistake - Ricky Davis is a better player than Szczerbiak. This part of the trade is a big win for the Timberwolves.

One thing to note is I don't think Danny Ainge had the same confidence in Ricky's defense that Doc Rivers had. By trading Davis it will force Doc to put Paul Pierce on the other team's top scorer late in games. This should help the Celtics simply because the refs will be less likely to call ticky-tack fouls on Pierce (Davis has been called for some real ticky-tack fouls this season).

Overall - I think this is a short-term win for the Timberwolves but a long term win for the Celtics (because of shedding Blount's contract and the first round pick).

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Aaron Gleeman