Report: Celtics Unlikely to Land Shane Battier

Boston is interested in Battier, but reportedly won’t get him according to CSNNE: “With Marquis Daniels (bruised spinal cord) looking more and more like he’ll be lost for the rest of the season, the Celtics are looking long and hard for a backup small forward to Paul Pierce. One of the players Boston is reportedly pursuing is Houston’s Shane Battier. It makes sense for the Celtics to inquire about Battier, who is in the final year of a contract that pays him $7.35 million this season. However, a league source confirmed to CSNNE.com Monday night that a deal involving Battier coming to Boston will not happen … Celtics coach Doc Rivers acknowledged what we all have known for weeks. The C’s don’t have a lot of trade chips to play, and thus find themselves struggling to gain much trade traction. ‘Obviously, we’re out there looking,’ Rivers said. ‘We’re not going to just go and do something, to do something. We’re clearly looking. We don’t have a lot of assets to move. We’ll see what happens.’ The biggest fear for the C’s right now is that they’re unable to make a trade, and Daniels isn’t able to return. ‘That would be tough, because of our size,’ Rivers said. ‘We would have a huge gap at the 3-spot. When you look at who we’d have to go through, Luol Dengs, LeBrons, Kobes … that would make it tough.'”