- Larry Kuzniewski
- Jerryd Bayless, shown here driving past Kendrick “Perma-Mad” Perkins, is officially a Celtic.
Well, it’s official: the trade that’s been discussed since Sunday afternoon between the Boston Celtics and the Memphis Grizzlies was announced this morning. From the press release:
The Memphis Grizzlies acquired guard Courtney Lee and a 2016 second round draft pick from the Boston Celtics in a three-team trade also involving the Oklahoma City Thunder, the team announced today.
As part of the deal, Memphis traded guard Jerryd Bayless to Boston and traded a conditional 2017 second round draft pick to Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City also traded forward Ryan Gomes to Boston.
What seems to have held the trade up is the involvement of Oklahoma City, who wanted to get rid of Ryan Gomes and jumped into this deal yesterday. My suspicion is that the Grizzlies didn’t want to do the deal without getting a pick back from Boston, and Boston wasn’t going to give up the pick unless the Oklahoma City part of the deal happened.
In his reporting of the deal, ESPN’s Marc Stein tweeted that the Celtics are expected to waive Ryan Gomes:
To recap: Celts get Bayless and Gomes and likely waive Gomes. Grizz get Courtney Lee. Some second-rounders likely involved to tie it all up
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) January 7, 2014
This excellent writeup by SB Nation’s Thunder blog Welcome to Loud City takes a look at the trade from the OKC salary dump perspective.
Overall, I still like this deal for the Grizzlies, from the perspective of this season and for the future—especially if Lee’s improved play this season continues going forward.
Lee will be available tonight against the Spurs, and has been eating well—the CA’s Ron Tillery has reported that he’ll be in uniform for the Grizzlies tonight—so maybe he can help get the Gasol-less Griz over the hump tonight against a San Antonio Spurs team missing Tiago Splitter.
UPDATE: The Thunder release about the deal mentions that the Grizzlies received “cash consideration” in the deal in exchange for the conditional 2nd-rounder. The Grizzlies release makes no mention of those considerations.
Second update: it has been brought to my attention that the food picture Herrington tweeted is old. Therefore, I do not know what Courtney Lee had for lunch today. We regret the error.
