HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – If anyone in the Oklahoma City Thunder locker room knows about the strain a blockbuster trade can put on a team it’s Kendrick Perkins.
The Thunder center, whose trade from Boston three season ago signaled the championship rise of his new team and a fall from that perch for his old team, is doing his best to convince anyone willing to listen that James Harden‘s trade to Houston is not what’s ailing the Thunder right now.
Maybe Jason Terry ought to change his nickname. From JET to drone.
Before teeing off at a Boston Celtics charity golf event in Bolton, Mass., Tuesday, the veteran shooting guard teed off on two rival NBA teams that have been all but handed a go-straight-to-The-Finals card by many fans and insiders. Celtics maven A. Sherrod Blakely was there to chronicle Terry’s comments for Comcast SportsNet New England.
“My mission is to kill; whether it’s the Heat, whether it’s the Lakers. Hopefully both. That’s my mission, and that’s what I’m here to do,” Terry said on Tuesday shortly before teeing off at the Fifth Annual USI Shamrock Classic which was hosted by the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation.
OK, so Terry is over the top with his imagery. No, moms and dads, he doesn’t mean literal bloodshed. Sports never has been or shall be confused with real warfare.
Reasonable people understand that Terry simply was voicing his competitiveness and hunger for another championship (he won one with Dallas in 2011). Besides, he is teamed now with a guy who once said (and got reprimanded for) this.
If Terry can do for Boston what he has done for 13 NBA seasons — with great consistency, averaging 16.1 points, 4.7 assists and shooting 44.8 percent for the Hawks and Mavs — the Celtics and their coach will be thrilled. He truly is just what the Doc ordered.
During the offseason, Celtics coach Doc Rivers put his wish list to paper in a lengthy letter to Danny Ainge, Boston’s president of basketball operations. ”We wanted a scorer off the dribble,” Rivers said. “I sit down and write Danny a letter about needs; that was my number one need. I didn’t think we had enough guys that could score off the dribble. (Rajon) Rondo can score off the dribble. But we needed a guy that could score and be a knock-down shooter. That was very important for us.”
Terry figures to be even more important if pressed into starter’s duty the first couple months while Avery Bradley recovers from two shoulder surgeries. Then there is the hole to be plugged since Ray Allen’s defection to Miami, a move in free agency by the popular Boston shooter that will turn each Heat-Celtics clash into an event.
The first one comes fast – Oct. 30 in South Florida, with the Heat’s ring ceremony on TNT. Folks can be as careful with their rhetoric as they like, but we’re expecting nothing less than seek-and-destroy (the other guys’ title dreams) mode from both sides.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Now that the dust has settled from the trade deadline, it’s time to consider how all the moves made by the various teams (and it seems like every team made some kind of move) will shape the rest of the season.
Here at the hideout it’s time to react, reflect and round-up those in the know so we can make sense of it all. And that’s exactly what we’ve got for you on Episode 46 of the Hang Time Podcast.
Paul Coro from the Arizona Republic stops by to talk about Steve Nash‘s future and how the shakeup in the Western conference will affect the Suns’ suddenly promising playoff hopes, and A. Sherrod Blakelyof Comcast SportsNet in Boston drops in to explain the Celtics’ moves (as best he can, anyway).
