by Sam Riches / @sam_riches
The Kendrick Perkins trade has been an intense issue of debate since the deal was completed in February.
Today, Doc Rivers provided some further insight into his thoughts regarding the trade, citing a resulting lack of continuity amongst the new players and stating in hindsight, he would have waited until the end of the season to complete the deal.
From the Boston Globe:
“‘Well, it was more not that the trust went away, the know-how went away,” Rivers said. “The continuity went away. That’s what the trade affected more than anything. Obviously, Perk was great to our team and all that. But it was more that you have new guys playing different positions and you had a guy who could literally reach back into a playbook and throw out something that was three or four years old and they all knew it, when Perk was there.
‘I would wait until after the year is over. I’ll put it that way. I do think Jeff Green has a chance to be a starter for us in the future and a hell of a basketball player. And Krstic can help. But making that trade at the time we made that trade, that made it very tough for us. And not only that, we added other pieces as well that we tried to fit in.
‘It was just a lot of moving parts to a team that the advantage that we had was that we had continuity, everybody else was new. Chicago was new and the Heat were new. They couldn’t fall back on what we could fall back on with our starting five. Once we made that trade, we took that advantage away.’”
Rivers also noted that the chemistry between Shaquille O’Neal and Boston’s starters gave the team confidence to make the trade, but when the Big Baryshnikov became sidelined with a seemingly never-ending calf and Achilles injury, the back-up plan was never given a chance.
