Earlier today, Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reported that Knicks guard Iman Shumpert received a second offseason knee surgery that was kept under wraps from fans and others in basketball. The Knicks have chatted with the Nuggets about a possible deal involving Kenneth Faried and, as Isola reported, called the Celtics about Rajon Rondo, but today’s developments don’t bode well for his trade value. Here’s more on Shump and the Knicks..
- Right now, the Celtics have every intention of keeping Rondo and seeing if they can build around him, sources tell Chris Broussard of ESPN.com (on Twitter). That’s not surprising to hear as that has been the C’s public position ever since the club traded away Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
- If the Knicks want to try their luck with the Rockets and center Omer Asik, they might not get far. The club’s lack of draft picks (they can’t trade a first rounder or an unencumbered second-round pick before 2018) will be too much of an obstacle in a potential deal, tweets Chris Mannix of NBC Sports. “When dealing with Boston and Houston, it’s all about picks,” a rival exec told Mannix.
- While the C’s aren’t moving Rondo, they would take back Amar’e Stoudemire in a deal where they could unload the longer deals of Gerald Wallace and/or Courtney Lee, tweets Broussard.
- Marc Berman of the New York Post (Twitter link) hears that Shumpert’s surgery went down in mid-to-late August and was so minor that the guard didn’t even need to use crutches.
- The timing of Shumpert’s left knee surgery annoyed some people in the Knicks organization, tweets Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com.
- Adam Zagoria of SNY (Twitter link) notes that the offseason surgeries of Shumpert and Stoudemire were kept quiet by the Knicks and first reported by Isola, with whom the club is famously hostile.