Re: Rasheed Wallace: Flavor of the day or NONSENSE?

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting post, Egg.

I'm going to look at this Rasheed Wallace thing. He's a jerk and I don't want him anywhere near the Celtics, but let's look at the two teams.

Portland wants to get rid of Rasheed, but there's no urgency. His contract is up after the season. There's no reason for them to take back junk. They can bide their time and let him walk if they don't get the right offer.

The Celtics' most valuable available assets are expiring contracts (Ewill and Mills). You could package those two together with Battie and you have a match, but how does that help the Blazers? They already have that expiring contract. Does Battie help them? I don't see how. 

Pierce isn't going to be a part of any deal. I'd like to think Kendrick Perkins isn't going anywhere. What's left? Banks? Welsch? They're the only guys left with real trade value. I don't think there's any way Ainge trades Welsch in anything but a no-brainer (cue Rasheed punchline here). I wouldn't put it past them to trade Banks, but is Banks that attractive to anyone other than Ainge and the Celtics? The only chip left is draft picks - and hopefully we're out of the trading draft picks for rentals business.

No, I could see (and hope) the Celtics cashing in those expiring contracts, but the player they get back will have a longer contract. That's just the way it is. You can get a good player that way - maybe even a Shareef or someone like that. But you just don't see expiring contracts of role players being traded for expiring contracts of star players. Of course, all rules were out the window when Wallace was in charge - then we'd trade better players and better contracts for worse players with bad contracts. But those days are done (thank goodness).

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying I don't see any kind of match. By the way, I don't see a match with Philly on Battie either. There would have to be some kind of third team involved. Maybe they're talking a three-way deal. I could see that (although I haven't worked out any possibilities). I also could see the Sixers trying to work something out to land Rasheed, since he's a Philly guy. 

Mark