It’s the trade rumor that never goes away. After a week of saying yes and then saying no to one another, Yahoo! Sports guru Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that league sources have informed him that the Los Angeles Clippers and Boston Celtics are “nearing a deal” that would finalize a trade of Doc Rivers to the Clippers in exchange for Los Angeles’ first-round draft pick.
Clippers called Celtics today, offered a future 1st round pick for rights to coach Doc Rivers and sides near agreement, source tells Y!
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 23, 2013
This is not a new rumor but Wojnarowski putting his name behind a report that the sides are nearing a deal is a seismic shift from where these talks were during the week. There was a lot of heavy petting but the deal wasn’t sealed and it never really came too close to being that way, save for maybe one late report that claimed the NBA rejected a trade offer.
But this appears to be a much more even swap as all other rumors involved Kevin Garnett and/or Paul Pierce in addition to Rivers being shipped out to Los Angeles for a slew of players and picks. In this new proposed deal, it appears that it will be a straight up swap for Rivers rather than a blockbuster deal that complicated salary cap issues for the Clippers.
The situation seemed to be dead and Celtics fans thought they had closure but this rumor just won’t go away and once again it looks like it’s barreling towards becoming a reality.