The Celtics are willing enough to trade Gerald Wallace that to do so, they would part with one of the seven extra first-round picks in line to come their way, sources tell Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders, who writes in his NBA AM piece. Wallace’s contract is poised to turn into an expiring deal next season, when it calls for a salary of nearly $10.106MM, and while that would ostensibly make it less costly to move, it appears Boston is ready to give up an asset of value to facilitate a swap. Here’s more from Boston one day after a playoff exit:
- Kyler has heard suggestions that the Mavs will make a run at Jae Crowder, as the Basketball Insiders scribe writes in the same piece. President of basketball operations Danny Ainge made it clear that he’d like Crowder back, and the soon-to-be restricted free agent received an auspicious diagnosis of a left ACL sprain after his injury Sunday, the team announced. That isn’t the serious injury that it appeared Crowder might have suffered, observes A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com (Twitter link).
- Blakely, in a full piece, examines the relative interest the C’s have in re-signing Crowder, Jonas Jerebko, Gigi Datome and Brandon Bass for next season
- A first-round playoff exit was just the sort of outcome Ainge feared for the Celtics, leaving them without a lottery pick or having had much of a playoff run, writes Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald. Still, people in the organization are warming to the idea that the postseason berth can help, and they’re hopeful that having been on the playoff stage raises the team’s profile for free agents. Already, Kevin Love had reportedly held Boston in high regard as a free agent destination before a tie-up with Kelly Olynyk left the injured All-Star with a “legitimate loathing” of the C’s, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported earlier.