What Is The Possibility Doc Rivers, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce are Traded to The Los Angeles Clippers?
By Josh Hill
A story that is starting to gain some serious steam is a rumor that the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Clippers are interested in pulling off a blockbuster trade that would send head coach Doc Rivers and forwards Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Clippers in exchange for a slew of young players. While it was a laughable rumor at first, we now seem to be getting a lot more serious about it than anyone expected.
But while it’s an NBA2K dream scenario that has been played out in living rooms across the country for years now, the actual possibility of the scenario playing out in real life is very low. For starters, it makes little sense for the Clippers to make a deal that is one of the most short-sighted gameplans in the history of basketball.
We all blasted the Lakers for trading for Dwight Howard with the possibility of losing him after one season, but there must be something in that LA water that makes people lose sight of the future and think only about the glitz and glam of the here and now.
If this scenario played out, the Clippers would be trading young talent like Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan and other assets like draft picks and cash to secure what could end up being just one year of going all-in. Meanwhile the Celtics are getting pieces in return that speed up their rebuilding process significantly and allow them to only miss a few beats in terms of being competitive in the Eastern Conference.
Los Angeles would be mortgaging their future to go all in for one season, as there is no guaranteed that River, Garnett or Paul return after next season and there’s no promise this offseason that Chris Paul comes back for another year either. On top of that, Kurt Helin from ProBasketballTalk and Larry Coon from ESPN both point out that the major thing making this deal too good to be true is the complexity regarding the contracts moving around.
It’s a really cute idea and the possibility of Doc Rivers coming to town may still be in the realm of reality. But this epic fantasy of Boston’s big three moving to Los Angeles is a bit out of reach, and just ask the Dodgers how well trading a Boston team for big contracts really ends up.