It seems like every time you think a team is good with their roster, another team in the West makes a deal to get a player.
Houston Rockets acquired Josh Smith.
Dallas Mavericks brought in Rajon Rondo.
Oklahoma City Thunder traded for Dion Waiters.
And now, according to sources, the Memphis Grizzlies are looking to make their already solid team, even better and ‘keep up with the jones” out West. Grizzlies are looking to acquire Miami Heat forward Luol Deng or Boston Celtics forward Jeff Green.
Following from Marc Stein of ESPN:
It is not immediately known how willing Miami would be to trade Deng, who is not yet even halfway through his first season of the two-year, $19.9 million contract he received from the Heat in the wake of LeBron James‘ return to Cleveland via free agency….
Green, meanwhile, is widely believed to be available leading into the deadline in the wake of Boston’s deal to send Rondo to Dallas last month. Although Green told local reporters last week on the eve of Rondo’s first game at TD Garden as a visiting player that he doesn’t “want to know how that feels because I don’t want to be traded.”
Any Grizzlies offer for Deng or Green is likely to feature the $7.7 million expiring contract of Tayshaun Prince as well as the promise of future draft compensation.
It seems like wing scoring with a little bit of defense is what the Grizzlies are after here.
The trade for Deng from Miami would possibly be the hardest out of the 2 players to acquire. Deng is an overall good offensive player, fitting well with any type of style. He’s averaging 14.3 points a game, a fantastic 58.7 true shooting percentage, and also shooting 36.3 percent from beyond the three-point line. Miami is still in the hunt for the playoffs, currently sitting in the 8 seed in the Eastern Conference and Deng is one of Miami’s 3 best players this year. In order to get Deng, the Grizzlies might have to give up more than just aging Prince and some picks. The deal would have to benefit the Heat ten-fold.
In the case of the Celtics though, this might be a little better deal. Green is scoring 17.9 points a game clip in Boston with another great 54.2 true shooting percentage, but is only shooting 31.1 percent from three this season. His shooting has improved but from time to time Green can be inconsistent from time to time.
The Grizzlies are doing a few things with this possible move, showing the West and Marc Gasol that they are serious about winning. Gasol might need to see this to ensure that his future would be safe in Memphis and see that the team wants to spend, also, if either one of these deals goes down the rest of the West should be scared.
Imagine a healthy Grizzlies lineup with Mike Conley, Tony Allen, Luol Deng/Jeff Green, Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol? Not many teams can stack up with that.
