In a trade deadline stunner, a source confirmed to WEEI.com's Kirk Minihane initial reports from Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski [1] and Sam Amick [2] that the Celtics have traded Kendrick Perkins and Nate Robinson to Oklahoma City in exhange for Jeff Green and Nenad Kristic. While the deal occured just before the deadline, another source indicated that the framework was in place earlier in the week.
Perkins injured his left knee in Tuesday's Celtics game with the Warriors and was expected to sit out the remaining three games of the team's West Coast trip. He had recently returned from surgery on his right knee. The deal is a huge change in direction for the Celtics who had loaded up on big men in the offseason in an effort to take down the Lakers. While Kristic is a big body, he's not the defender or rebounder that Perkins was, and the Celtics now seem to be relying on healthy returns from Jermaine O'Neal and Shaquille O'Neal.
The real prize here is Green, who was taken with the Celtics pick in the 2007 draft in the Ray Allen trade. Green is averaging 15 points and 5.6 rebounds for the Thunder.
For more Celtics news visit the team page at weei.com/celtics [3]
Links:
[1] http://twitter.com/#!/WojYahooNBA/statuses/40862021779988480
[2] http://twitter.com/#!/sam_amick/status/40862521501945856
[3] http://www.weei.com/teams/celtics/home
[4] http://www.weei.com/category/boston/celtics