A day after the Celtics lost their fifth straight game, to former center Kendrick Perkins and his Thunder, Yahoo! Sports columnist Adrian Wojnarowski reports [1] that "several contending teams have inquired" about the availability of C's captain Paul Pierce.
"There are 'a lot of calls asking if [Boston] will blow it up," an Eastern Conference official told Wojnarowski.
While Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen both become free agents at the end of the season, Pierce is under contract with the Celtics for two more years and $32 million. Could he become trade bait at the March 15 deadline without signs of improvement from the current team?
The Perkins trade for Jeff Green last February was the first sign that Celtics president Danny Ainge isn't afraid to blow up the 2008 championship core. Ainge has reiterated multiple times that nobody is safe, as he hopes to preserve the future and avoid another post-Big Three malaise like the one the Celtics endured throughout the 1990s.
For more on the Celtics, visit weei.com/celtics [2].
Links:
[1] http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-wojnarowski_kendrick_perkins_thunder_celtics_nba_011712
[2] http://www.weei.com/celtics
[3] http://www.weei.com/category/boston/celtics