Who Knew the Celtics and Pacers Were Alike?

I remember way back in the 2010-2011 NBA season when the Boston Celtics decided to trade away Kendrick Perkins at the trade deadline. Perkins didn’t play much of that season as he had gotten hurt during the NBA Finals the previous year. Perkins came back and played 12 games for the Celtics but contract extension issues prompted the Celtics to trade Kendrick Perkins and Nate Robinson to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Jeff Green and Nenad Kristic. The move gave the Thunder a big man and gave the Celtics a young wing player to take over for Paul Pierce eventually.

While the Thunder still thrived with Green no longer being there, the Celtics pretty much fell apart. Before the trade the Celtics routinely whooped the newly formed Miami Heat Big 3 in the regular season. After the trade the Celtics were outsted by the Heat and it seemed like something was missing. Sure they still had Jermaine and Shaquille O’Neal but lets be real neither one of them could replace Kendricks production and what he meant to the team. Also Shaq was done at that point and Jermaine O’Neal was done too, but somehow he’s still balling for a living. Perkins being gone really hurt the team from a chemistry standpoint and it showed. Even though the team got better from a talent standpoint, the chemistry was still off and it was ultimately why the Celtics failed.

Fast forward to now and Jeff Green is doing exactly what the Celtics wanted from him when they traded for him 3 years ago and thats taking Paul Pierces place as starting small forward for a rebuilding Celtics team. The Celtics were still a good team after the trade but they weren’t nearly as deadly. On the other side of things Perkins is on the Oklahoma City Thunder still, but is seen as a weak point on the team,  and the word “garbage” can commonly be heard in reference to Perkins name, far from the high praise he received as a Celtic.  The Thunder are a top tier team but no one would tell you that its because of Perkins. No one knows how things would of worked out if the Celtics never traded Perkins and killed the chemistry but that could definitely be seen as a turning point.

Now the Indiana Pacers are looking like they walked themselves into a very similar situation. At this years trade deadline the Pacers traded away long time Pacer Danny Granger for the younger Evan Turner.

The move seemed solid at the time as the Pacers had just signed Andrew Bynum as well. With Bynum and Luis Scola in the frontcourt and Evan Turner running the 6th man, the Pacers bench was supposed to be nice. Now with Bynum unsurprisingly hurt for the long term and Evan Turner being pretty wack, the Pacers bench has been pretty much the same disappointment that it was when Granger was there. On top of that the starting unit hasn’t been nearly as good as it once was and the Pacers are dropping games. It was generally thought that the Pacers should move Danny Granger’s expiring contract for a more productive player but Turner hasn’t been more productive at all.

Granger had been a Pacer his whole career and was the leader of that team. Even when he wasn’t playing because of injury he was still the  guy mentoring those younger guys and keeping players in check. Now that hes gone the team looks to be on a bad slump. I don’t want to get ahead of myself and say that this slump will continue but its not to crazy to think that they might not get as far in the playoffs as most of us thought. When I look at the Pacers now, I see the same thing I saw with the Celtics, a great team that messed up all that great chemistry.

Hopefully the Pacers can regain their footing and finish out strong. Right now the Miami Heat have passed them for number one in the East and if the Pacers don’t finish out strong the Heat will stay right in first place.