Banks almost traded to Seattle

Sports Illustrated's Ian Thomsen reports in his friday column that the Celtics almost completed a pre-deal with the Supersonics that would have featured Marcus Banks. This fell apart when the Timberwolves apparently decided they prefered Banks to Seattle's Flip Murray.

The prelude to the recent Timberwolves-Celtics deal is more interesting than the trade itself. The Sonics were negotiating to send guards Flip Murray and Rick Brunson to Boston in exchange for Marcus Banks; the Celtics were then going to send Murray to the Timberwolves as part of the package for Wally Szczerbiak. Everything was put on hold, though, when Seattle point guard Luke Ridnour suffered an injury, prompting the Sonics to delay the trade for a day to see how long Ridnour would be sidelined. He missed one game -- on Jan. 26, the same day the Celtics changed direction by sending Banks to Minnesota as part of the Szczerbiak deal. The Sonics were disappointed that Boston wasn't willing to wait, but the Celtics say that the decision wasn't theirs to make. They insist that the Timberwolves ultimately decided to acquire Banks instead of Murray. In any case, the Sonics are now back on the phones seeking a defensive-minded backup point guard by the Feb. 23 deadline

Unless I read this wrong the result of this trade, had it gone down, would have been that the Celtics would have added Rick Brunson instead of Dwayne Jones. Meh.