Why the Celtics traded Erden

Some of us have wondered why we'd trade a rugged center, albeit with a shoulder injury and a hustle player like Harangody for a bag of donuts.

According to Redsarmy.com, it was because the Celtics were expecting Semih to head back to Europe out of homesickness after the season was out anyway.

www.redsarmy.com

Rudy Fernandez has said, in the past, he'd like to go back to Europe. Ricky Rubio is loathe to leave it. Pau Gasol has said he'd play in Europe if there's a lockout. Should we really be surprised that Europeans are more comfortable in Europe? Having said that, I think we'd have been well served keeping him around for the rest of this season anyway for insurance just in case one of our primary centers, (oh, let's just say for the sake of argument, chronically injured 38-year old Shaq) couldn't answer the bell in the playoffs. I mean, what's a 2nd round pick worth that we had to have it? The only thing I can think is that we wanted to free up roster spots, plural, and they wouldn't take Harangody, a tweener drafted with the 52nd pick, without Semih being thrown in.

This is the type of "inside baseball" insights that you don't usually hear realtime. They come out in dribs and drabs over time. When you consider, also, that the Erden/Harangody trade came almost simultaneously with the MUCH more significant Perk trade, no wonder nobody put much time or thought into researching whether there were any additional reasons why we did this trade beyond freeing up roster spots. All anybody, both here and in the Celtic front office and the media, wanted to talk about was Perk and Green and Krstic and Nate.


bob

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bob,

I know Boston wanted to open up roster spots but I don't buy this one at all that they felt he would leave the NBA to play in Europe. Trading Harangody for a future 2nd round pick is fine, but out of the players they traded at the trade deadline (Perkins, Harangody, Erden, Robinson, Daniels), trading Erden was the only one I viewed as a mistake. The Perkins trade can't be fully analyzed for a year or two.

As an interesting note to the Boston trade deadline deals, some might wonder why Sacramento would trade for Daniels when he had a career threatening injury, Sacramento would take on his salary and would give up a 2017 2nd round draft pick. Nearing the trade deadline they were approximately $2m under the team salary minimum so they needed to take on some more salary. If a team is under the salary limit, they could be fined $5m and have additional penalties assessed to them.

tjmakz wrote:bob,

I know Boston wanted to open up roster spots but I don't buy this one at all that they felt he would leave the NBA to play in Europe. Trading Harangody for a future 2nd round pick is fine, but out of the players they traded at the trade deadline (Perkins, Harangody, Erden, Robinson, Daniels), trading Erden was the only one I viewed as a mistake. The Perkins trade can't be fully analyzed for a year or two.

As an interesting note to the Boston trade deadline deals, some might wonder why Sacramento would trade for Daniels when he had a career threatening injury, Sacramento would take on his salary and would give up a 2017 2nd round draft pick. Nearing the trade deadline they were approximately $2m under the team salary minimum so they needed to take on some more salary. If a team is under the salary limit, they could be fined $5m and have additional penalties assessed to them.

TJ,

Sacto's pickup of Daniels is a head scratcher, no doubt about it. At best, he was done for the year. I like Daniels and see the value of having him on the squad under normal conditions but his serious injury made these conditions anything but that.

Harangody for a 2nd rounder straight up? I'm not sure, if I'm the GM of Cleveland, that I'd make that trade and I like Harangody. I think he has a chance of being a lunchpail, deep bench player in the NBA for a bunch of years, a player that coaches like having on their team because he's fundamentally sound and a hard worker, but is he worth a high 2nd rounder (which is what Cleveland's pick will be) when he was #52?

I agree with your last point, which is that we cannot judge the Perk trade for another year. Training camps do wonders for improving a player's effectiveness and all the players involved in that trade have yet to go through one with their new teams.

bob

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