AROUND THE LEAGUE

by **112288** Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:23 pm

Nate Robinson out 4-6 weeks with knee surgery
Kurt Helin Mar 4, 2011, 12:22 PM EST
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Well, this part of the trade has not worked out for the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Nate Robinson will be out at least a month after getting his knee scoped, according to Royce Young at Daily Thunder (via twitter). This is the first surgery of Robinson’s career.

He’s out four to six weeks, which would bring him back a little bit before the playoffs start.

Robinson came to the Thunder from the Boston Celtics as part of the Kendrick Perkins/Jeff Green swap. Robinson was going to provide a little more depth at the point, along with Russell Westbrook and Eric Maynor. He brings a scoring punch — when he’s hitting — that can energize a team and help steal some games.

Go ahead and ask if the Celtics knew about this before the trade if you want, it’s kind of moot. First, this seemed to come out of the blue. But really, Robinson was a throw in, Perkins was the goal and target. And they knew he was injured.
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Leon Powe inks deal with Memphis Grizzlies
Kurt Helin Mar 3, 2011, 7:33 PM EST
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The already quality front line of the Memphis Grizzlies just got deeper.

Leon Powe has signed with the Grizzlies, according to David Aldridge of NBA.com.

Powe played some quality minutes along the front line of the Boston Celtics during their 2008 title run, giving them 11 points and 5 minutes a game during the playoffs. However, injuries set him back the last two seasons. This season he wasn’t contributing to Cleveland and they bought him out.

Memphis is the team in the West that all the top seeds want to avoid in the first round. A key part of that is the Zach Randolph/Marc Gasol front line that is hard to deal with. We’ll see how Powe fits in off the bench, but if he can give Memphis what he gave Boston a couple seasons ago then Memphis just got that much harder to deal with up front. He may not be able to — he wasn’t contributing in Cleveland. But the risk for Memphis is not that great.

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