NBA Trade Rumors: 10 Teams That Should Trade For Blake Griffin

1. Boston Celtics

If the Clippers do make Blake Griffin available, the Boston Celtics will be banging down Doc Rivers’ door with their collection of assets. They may not have the star power alone to make a Griffin trade viable, especially for a Clippers team that wants to win now, but they have more draft pick sweeteners than anyone but the Sixers.

Between that and some excellent, defensive-minded role players, the Celtics would have to be considered the frontrunners in this hypothetical Griffin sweepstakes (unless the Clippers had their hearts set on Kevin Love or Carmelo Anthony).

This may seem like a lot for Boston to give up, but what Celtics fans would need to understand is that in order to trade for a star of this caliber, having a Godfather-type offer is the best way to outbid the rest of the competition.

Avery Bradley has been excellent this year, averaging 14.8 points per game on 36.0 percent three-point shooting, while also contributing his same stellar defense. Jae Crowder probably deserved more All-Star chatter than he got, averaging 14.5 points and 5.1 rebounds per game on 36.5 percent three-point shooting while locking down opposing wings.

And Jared Sullinger, who is only averaging 23.7 minutes per game, has been extremely productive. Sully is posting 9.7 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, and though he’s only shooting 26.8 percent from three-point range, he’s already close to being a double-double machine at age 23.

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However, Bradley is slightly superfluous in a backcourt that also has first-time All-Star Isaiah Thomas and the young, defensively versatile Marcus Smart. Bradley is the best mix of offense and defense between the three, but Thomas is beloved by Celtics fans and Smart is a respectable jump shot away from being an extremely good player. Something’s got to give eventually.

Crowder is on a killer contract (five years, $35 million) and has been an intrinsic part of Boston’s success, but the whole point of stockpiling all these assets was to put them to good use if a star ever became available via trade. Blake Griffin could be that star, and I don’t think many would shed a tear over Sully’s departure if it brought the Flyin’ Lion and also cleared out a future backcourt logjam.

For the Clippers, they’d get a capable backup shooting guard in Bradley, an excellent two-way small forward who could start right away in Crowder a guy who could come in off the bench and give Lob City some size in Sullinger. More than likely, however, the Celtics would probably prefer to swap Sullinger with Kelly Olynyk:

The Celtics might not go for this depending on how many draft picks we’re talking about including, but Olynyk would certainly be an intriguing piece for the Clippers. He’s only averaging 10.3 points and 4.4 rebounds per game, but he’s only playing 20.7 minutes a night and is converting an eye-popping 44.4 percent of his 3.1 three-pointers per game.

The Clippers would love to have that kind of young, stretch-5 included in a potential deal, especially one that involves the loss of their franchise star.

Unfortunately, the problem is this trade sets the Clippers up for the future more so than the here and now. Boston would probably be able to put together the best overall deal, but most of its appeal comes from draft picks and the promise of grooming younger players like Bradley, Crowder and Olynyk/Sullinger.

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Crowder would be a God-send on the wing and Bradley and Olynyk would bolster the bench, but the Clippers wouldn’t have a worthy, direct replacement for Griffin at power forward come playoff time.