4:47pm: Though he made comments indicating he would welcome Garnett to L.A., Chris Paul said he's not pushing the Clippers to make the deal, notes USA Today's Sam Amick.
4:22pm: Garnett has not ruled out accepting a trade to Los Angeles, a source tells Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. The Clippers, who began their efforts to land Garnett with the Bledsoe-Butler package more than two weeks ago, have always been willing to increase their price, Deveney writes.
3:42pm: Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe hears the teams have not discussed Garnett, and that the Clippers don't want to approach the luxury tax line (Twitter link). The Clippers are about $1MM shy of the $70.307MM tax threshold, but acquiring Garnett for Jordan and Bledsoe would save the team money. The other version of the deal, sending out Green, Turiaf and Butler, would likely make the Clippers a taxpayer.
2:51pm: Though Garnett has said he won't waive his no-trade clause under any circumstances, the Clippers are confident they can persuade him to come to L.A. if the Celtics tell him it's a deal they want to make, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.
SATURDAY, 10:45am: Sean Deveney of the Sporting News tweets that the Clippers' primary incentive to do the trade is Del Negro's belief that Jordan isn't a championship-caliber center. He writes that the team discussed the possibility of trading for Anderson Varejao before the Cavs' big man's season-ending injury.
FRIDAY, 12:53am: Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro would be willing to do the deal, but the team's front office is "totally against the move," according to Chris Broussard of ESPN.com. Clippers executives would prefer to send out Willie Green, Ronny Turiaf and Caron Butler for Garnett (Twitter links).
12:11am: The Celtics and Clippers have been in consistent contact about a trade that would send Kevin Garnett to L.A. for Eric Bledsoe and DeAndre Jordan, report Adrian Wojnarowski and Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. Factions within both teams are debating whether the deal would be the best course of action. This appears to be the latest incarnation of a proposal that would have sent Bledsoe and Caron Butler to Boston for Garnett.
After that rumor surfaced a couple of weeks ago, we heard that Garnett would not waive his no-trade clause unless he was dealt to L.A., which is close to his home in Malibu, Calif., and also unless the Celtics also traded Paul Pierce. While no Pierce trade appears imminent, sources tell Wojnarowski and Spears that Garnett's close relationship with Clippers guard Chauncey Billups could help coax him into accepting the swap.
The Clippers have been reluctant to deal Bledsoe without knowing what Chris Paul will do in free agency this summer, but the team's front office is becoming increasingly confident Paul will re-sign, according to the Yahoo! report. Many within the organization believe Garnett would strengthen the team's title hopes, which explains the team's pursuit. It appears that the Clippers initiated talks of the earlier Garnett-Bledsoe-Butler proposal.
Wojnarowski and Spears point out that acquiring Bledsoe would allow the Celtics to deal away Rajon Rondo without getting a point guard in return, and earlier tonight a report surfaced about a potential Rondo/Dwight Howard swap. As I wrote then, it appears Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge is aggressively pursuing his options as Thursday's trade deadline nears. Ainge has reportedly been looking for something to get "really, really excited about" in any deal for Garnett, and it's unclear whether Bledsoe and Jordan would be enough to satisfy that requirement.
From a salary perspective, the deal works out well for the Celtics. It would only add $674,432K to the team's salary, leaving about $2MM under Boston's $74.307MM hard cap, plenty of room to pursue another player to fill out the team's injury-depleted roster. Jordan's four-year, $43MM contract includes a 15% trade kicker, but because it was signed after the league's current CBA went into effect, the Clippers would have to absorb the extra money if they trade their center, and not the team that acquires him.
Too risky. Garnett possibly has 1-2 seasons left. DeAndre is a legit starting center. Bledsoe is great with his bench role. Everyone on the Clippers grooving now. Trading to get even older is questionable. If Boston is not hesitant to blow up their team to land this trade, you know who wins out in the end.
Clips would be dumb to do that. Looks like someone in that Boston front office is leaking dumb trade rumors. First Howard for Rondo, then this.
Yea I don’t see how this deal helps the Clippers going forward to be honest I mean yea you’d have a legit shot at a title but what about after that. Jordan is a legit NBA center it doesn’t make sense to get rid of someone like that because centers are much harder to replace in the NBA then guards are. Also doesn’t make sense for the Celtics to acquire Bledsoe unless your trading out another guard before you acquire him and they’d be foolish to trade Rondo period.
In agreement with everyone here. This move might not make the Clippers better this season. If LAC were not involved, I would dismiss it as speculation (but I’m always half-expecting LAC’s organizational failures). Rentals should be huge upgrades or inexpensive. This upgrade is marginal (or even detrimental) and costs valuable LAC assets. Hoping there is nothing to this.
“Clippers executives would prefer to send out Willie Green, Ronny Turiaf and Caron Butler for Garnett”
Lol.
newsflash: i’d prefer to have a million dollars right this second!
Are y’all clips fans serious? I mean I thought Deandre was a forward but a center? how many blocks does that dude even make? lol what a joke. KG is WAY better than Deandre performance-wise. So, I do infact agree with y’all that this trade shoudn’t hapen but it’s definitely not because of Deandre’s “prowess” over KG, but rather the opposite, Celtics woudl gain nothign from this trade. If they had another legitimate big then that’d be fine, but they can’t just trade their only and best big they’ve had in years for a scrub like Deandre
It would kill me to see Garnett leave. He is still playing good basketball, but if sending Garnett off means it gives them a better chance at landing Josh Smith, I think there’s no question about it. Of course, it’s still up to KG, but this team needs to focus on rebuilding/retooling.