Mutual Interest Between Clippers, Prince

SATURDAY, 5:50pm: The Clippers’ preferred method of acquiring the small forward would be a free agent signing after he agrees to a buyout with the Celtics, rather than a trade with Boston, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com.

FRIDAY, 9:00am: It doesn’t appear a foregone conclusion that the Celtics will unload recent trade acquisition Tayshaun Prince, but there’s already mutual interest between the 13th-year veteran and the Clippers, as Chris Mannix of SI.com reports within his Open Floor column. The Clippers are the front-runners to land Prince, according to Mannix, who expects the Clips to aggressively seek bench help over the next month.

The Austin Rivers trade left the Clippers with an open roster spot, and it appears the team is angling to fill it with Nate Robinson. The Clippers are also reportedly working toward a buyout with Jordan Farmar, and Dahntay Jones occupies one of their roster spots on a 10-day contract, so the team is poised to have as many as three spots available soon.

The Celtics haven’t decided whether to pursue a buyout deal with Prince, trade him, or keep him, though the forward will meet soon with Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge to discuss all of those options, as Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald reported Thursday. Prince, who turns 35 next month, is due to make nearly $7.708MM this season in the final year of his contract. Prior to Monday’s trade that sent him from Memphis to Boston, he was seeing his fewest minutes per game since his rookie season, and his PER of 8.7 over the past season and a half is indicative of a sharp decline.