The Boston Celtics are hungry for stars. They tried to get Kevin Durant this summer. They did get Al Horford away from the Atlanta Hawks. And Danny Ainge has been stockpiling assets on the court and on draft night in order to have the flexibility to acquire the next star available on the trade market. One of those players could end up being Los Angeles Clippers big man Blake Griffin, who has had trade rumors swirling around him since the incident in which he punched the team equipment manager and broke his hand midway through the season.
At times, those rumors have involved the Celtics because the Celtics’ trade rumor machine is one of the biggest and baddest rumor mills in all the NBA land. Whether it has a shred of truth to it or not, you can tie almost any potentially available star player to the Celtics acquiring them through sources. However, Clippers president and coach Doc Rivers won’t allow you to believe they were ever close to trading away Griffin to the Celtics. He even jokes that the Boston media likely made them up.
Griffin can opt out of his contract in the summer of 2017 and become an unrestricted free agent. Unless he all of a sudden doesn’t want to make as much money as possible, he’s going to opt out of his deal after the 2016-17 campaign and look for a max deal. If the Clippers are worried they’re going to lose him for nothing, they’ll find a way to make a trade before the trade deadline in February, but most likely Rivers is highly confident the Clippers will be able to re-sign him.
Despite an obvious suspension following the punching incident, the Clippers have stuck behind Griffin since they drafted him in 2009. They re-signed his good friend DeAndre Jordan two summers ago and had Griffin kidnap/help convince Jordan to go back on his word to join the Dallas Mavericks and re-sign in Los Angeles. It seems very unlikely the Clippers are going to want to trade him any time soon, but if they do, Ainge will be waiting with young players and draft picks to spare.
Courtesy: CBS Sports
