Cavaliers shooting guard Dion Waiters has been the subject of quite a few trade rumors throughout the season, and Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Plain Dealer notes that those talks will only intensify as we inch closer to the trade deadline. The second-year guard out of Syracuse insists he isn’t fazed by the possibility that he could be changing addresses soon:
“I don’t worry about that stuff…If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. If not, it’s not. I can’t control that. It’s out of my hands.”
Here’s more out of the Eastern Conference tonight:
- During a live chat with his readers earlier today, Eddie Sefko of SportsDayDFW said that the Bucks aren’t willing to trade Larry Sanders right now because they know they’d be selling low.
- According to Yannis Koutroupis of Basketball Insiders, there isn’t any untouchable player currently on the Nets roster, and in a market where star players are difficult to come by, Brook Lopez, Deron Williams, Paul Pierce, and Joe Johnson could be acquired for less than their true value because Brooklyn will clearly be sellers at this year’s trade deadline.
- Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston sheds some light on Celtics forward Jeff Green, who aside from showing glimpses of his obvious potential, has struggled to find a comfort zone this year. With the trade deadline looming, Forsberg says it’s fair to wonder if Green is still a part of Boston’s future plans, and that even considering his under-performance as well as his four-year, $36.2MM price tag, there will still be teams interested in his services.
- In a subscribers-only piece for ESPN Insider, Chad Ford cites an anonymous GM who thinks current Syracuse point guard Tyler Ennis will be a more reliable floor general than Kyrie Irving: “If you were to ask me right now whether I’d take Ennis over (Irving), I think it’s Ennis,..He does all the things that help a basketball team win basketball games. You can pick him apart on individual flaws, but I would take this kid right now and trust him to run my team. I think there’s very few freshmen you could ever say that about.”
- Though some may be skeptical about how Andrew Bynum‘s past behavioral issues could affect the Pacers’ chemistry, Darvin Ham – formerly an assistant with the Lakers in 2011/12 and now an assistant with the Hawks– vouched for Bynum’s ability to remain focused: “I really spent a lot of one-on-one time with him, been in group settings with him…He’s really not a disruptive guy. He just wants to be left alone and left alone to play the game, plain and simple (Candace Buckner of IndyStar.com).
- While Anthony Bennett has struggled for most of the year, Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal writes that the UNLV product hasn’t been listening to the negative talk about his game and doesn’t dwell on his mistakes as much as he’d done earlier in the season: “I was just worried about making a lot of mistakes, with getting subbed out, all that in the back of my head…Now I’m just going out there and giving it my all. Who cares if I get subbed out? I’m just playing.”