Blount to Cleveland for Gooden/Jones?

Boston's better sports section breaks some new ground on Blount trade rumors. The new possible trading partner is the Cavaliers, who may or may not be offering Drew Gooden and Damon Jones.

Marcus Banks is also involved at this point. If something were to happen with Cleveland, he would accompany Blount. Sources say Drew Gooden and Damon Jones have been discussed as a return.

'Have been discussed' is one of those great journalistic catch-alls that could mean Cleveland has offered, Boston has asked, Steve Bulpett's neighbor from Akron thinks its a good idea, or something else altogether.

Putting aside the laundry list of 'ifs' that should go before this paragraph, a Gooden/Jones deal is more than just a salary dump. Gooden is a better post player than anyone currently on the Celtics roster and Jones would push some of Delonte West's minutes to SG. You may ask yourself, why would the Cavs take a trade that is a clear downgrade in talent?

The charitable place to start is that Cleveland has old friend (for you UConn fans) Donyell Marshall and surprise draft steal Anderson Verajão at PF. For them, Blount becomes insurance in case Z breaks down at the 5 and provides some nice offense off the bench. Banks backs up Eric Snow at the point.

The more important thing pushing this, however, would be that both Cavs seem to be wearing out their welcome. Gooden is the kind of talented young 6'10" bruiser of a PF that teams normally would kill for. He's close to tops in the league in both FG% and rebound rate. And yet at the end of this season he'll be on to the 4th team of his 4 year NBA career, which suggests how much his coaches and teammates like working with him. I remember reading somewhere that Doc and Gooden couldn't stand each other when both were in Orlando.

Jones was Cleveland's consolation prize when they couldn't sign Saras last summer. He signed a 4-year $16M deal and is now is steadily losing playing time and getting booed by the fans. If he comes to Boston he can commiserate with Veal and Dickau about fan's high expectations for role player free agent signees.

If this trade goes down it looks like another move by ownership to rent an expiring contract to make their annual run at the playoffs and theassociatedd revenues. This trade would put any serious rebuilding on hold for yet another year.

The other option is that this has been leaked by Celtics management to put pressure on Minnesota and/or Memphis to do a Blount deal on Boston's terms.