Boston has made a deadline deal that seems to weaken their defense as they head in the playoffs — and just made the Oklahoma City Thunder a much bigger threat in the West.
Boston has traded Kendrick Perkins and Nate Robinson to the Oklahoma City Thunder for forward Jeff Green and center Nenad Krstic, as confirmed by CSN New England’s A. Sherrod Blakely (Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski was first). He also hints there may be another deal coming (Blakely tweeted they want to sign Troy Murphy), which might help explain this one.
Because for Boston this is a strange move — Perkins and his ferocious interior defense was a key part of their title run three years ago and push to the finals last year. While Kevin Garnett is the heart and soul of the Celtics and their defense, Perkins was the rock along the back line.
If the Celtics meet the Magic in the playoffs, they are going to have a much harder time containing Dwight Howard with Shaquille O’Neal, Jermaine O’Neal and Krstic. The Heat also were worried about Perkins ability to make it hard on LeBron James and Dwyane Wade driving the lane. No other Celtic big man on that roster intimidates them.
The Celtics will miss Perkins when it matters most. They will miss Robinson too, he did provide a scoring spark off the bench. In other moves. Boston traded Semih Erdan and Luke Harangody to Cleveland for a second-round pick; and they moved Marquis Daniels to Sacramento for cash. (We didn’t think Sacramento had any cash.)
Jeff Green is a quality backup combo forward, but he was overrated for a while and people are really taking notice of his weak defense and poor shot selection. He makes up for some of that with athleticism. He’s not a starter, not yet anyway, but as a backup to Paul Pierce he’s an improvement over Marquis Daniels. Marginally. Maybe Green is someone who could someday develop enough to slide into Pierce’s starting spot when he walks away. But this is a guy with a PER below the league average, he’s not that special. And his rookie contract is up in a couple years.
Apparently the primary concern for Boston is that Perkins could be a free agent this summer — they couldn’t afford to pay and keep him. While he had said he wanted to return there was a risk the Celtics could get nothing for him. So they were proactive. Even if it meant hurting the team in the short run.
The Thunder, on the other hand, got exactly what they needed. The long running concern has been their inability to match up with the Lakers long front line in the playoffs, or to stop penetrating guards. Perkins changes those things right off.
The Thunder also made a trade to get Nazr Mohammed from Charlotte for Mo Pete’s expiring and D.J. White. That gives them more real depth along the front line.
