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Pardon my skepticism, but I see exactly what the Boston Celtics are doing and it all goes back to Doc Rivers.
Before there was the Big 3 versus the Big 3, there was Doc and his Celtics playing the role of pain in the rear for LeBron James and Dwyane Wade — Cleveland’s LeBron and a post championship Wade.
Doc’s boys were a headache for them every season but with his run to Los Angeles, everyone expected the death of a rivalry. The team was done. Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett weren’t going to want anything to do with a team that didn’t have championship potential.
So they added a new wrinkle.
It was like: once they realized that the league wouldn’t let them reunite Rivers with his players, the Celtics decided to take one more stab at Miami on their way out.
By trading Jason Terry, Pierce and Garnett to the Brooklyn Nets, they killed one rivalry and unearthed another. And if you ask me, that was their purpose all along. A blatant “if we can’t win it, neither can you” moment.
That’s the only reason I could see Boston not only trading within their conference but within the division. Why else would they make moves with a team that will be good enough to void the value of their first-round picks? And of all things, take back the big contract of Gerald Wallace?
Okay, so maybe I’m just a cynic that hopes this deal forces Miami to fish for a big man. Either way, they could be looking at a monster.
“I do think they’re a championship-caliber team,” former head coach Jeff Van Gundy said on the Michael Kay radio show. “If they play well and remain healthy, which is always a challenge for an older team, I think they have the best starting-unit talent in basketball.”
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Richard Nurse is a Miami Heat columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @blackirishpr.
