The widely reported trade between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Clippers 
that involved a future Hall of Famer, draft picks and even a coach has fallen apart – for now.
Celtics GM Danny Ainge may have asked for too much, which may have ticked off Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
The dissolution of the deal – which was to send DeAndre Jordan, Caron Butler and a first-round pick to the Celtics for Kevin Garnett, coach Doc Rivers and either Courtney Lee or Jason Terry – may reflect poorly on the Clippers, who are still trying to hold onto free-agent-to-be Chris Paul.
Will this force Paul to re-evaluate remaining in Los Angeles? Will Rivers remain the coach of the Celtics?
And is this deal really dead?
In this interview with Cinesport’s Noah Coslov, our Mark Heisler answers those questions and others.
It seems the issue for Sterling was having to pay the 15% trade kicker on Jordan and 35 million over 5 years for Doc. Question? Since Doc likely doesn’t want to return to Celtics to coach Rondo, why not reduce the offer for Doc?
Also, why not just proceed with all the interviews for coach, and consider a deal just of KG for Jordan? Hollins could probably remove that soft label on Griffin as well as Doc.
I agree this is a gift for Clippers and Ainge has no leverage unless they truly are OK with keeping both Pierce and KG.
Clippers may end up getting Pierce for the mini-MLE as a bonus, so they better start these talks again.