Boston Celtics: “Pass or Pursue” on 6 recently listed trade targets
By Mark Nilon
Boston Celtics trade target No. 4) Eric Gordon
Solely from a talent and skill-set perspective, Eric Gordon is actually one of the most ideal players the Boston Celtics could bring aboard outside of, say, an upgrade at the point guard position such as Dejounte Murray, Ben Simmons, etc.
A pure scorer who’s made a career for himself being a spark-plug super sixth-man, the 14-year veteran finds himself stuck on the rebuilding Rockets when he’s a player best served suiting up for a contender or, at the very least one that legitimately hopes to be by year’s end.
The shamrocks certainly appear to be gunning towards the latter and, what with their unbelievably pedestrian second-unit scoring unit, one where they rank second to last in points per game, dead last in field goal percentage and in offensive rating, a guy of Gordon’s skills could actually be a tremendous addition which is why Greenberg has him slotted in on his trade targets list.
However, acquiring the shooting guard would be far more than just bringing on his on-court expertice — the Cs would also be bringing on his baggage.
Should the Celtics opt to deal for him, his $18.8 million salary would prevent them from attaining him by means of any of their dissposable TPEs, which means they’d have to part with players attatched to future draft capital which, frankly, is not something we believe they should be looking to do, especially if it means just bringing back Gordon.
Aside from his costly financial situation, the guard also finds himself in possession of a long and extensive injury history that has kept him from playing in 60 or more games in all but six years during his career and has held him to under 50 games in five.
Regardless of his impressive career averages of 16.6 points on 37 percent shooting from deep, the 33-year-old is simply too risky of a player for Boston to shell out assets for, especially at his price-range.