The day after the Celtics waived Rasheed Wallace... and waived goodbye to what everyone thought was a tradeable contract... a bunch of guys whose contracts would have matched have been traded for each other.
The New Orleans Hornets acquired Trevor Ariza(notes) Wednesday in a four-team, five-player trade that also sends point guard Darren Collison(notes) to the Indiana Pacers, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
The deal also sends Pacers forward Troy Murphy(notes) to the New Jersey Nets and Nets guard Courtney Lee(notes) to the Houston Rockets. In addition to landing Collison – the young point guard they’ve been searching for all offseason – the Pacers also have to take on forward James Posey(notes), who has two years and $13.5 million remaining on his contract.
Yes, my opening graph was phrased pretty unfairly because I'm pretty damn sure Danny Ainge didn't just see this trade go through and say "oh MAN.. I totally FORGOT bout that Ariza guy." I'm sure Danny inquired about the possibility and these teams all wanted something more in return than a retiring player.
Danny... on the off chance that you actually read this... it's just we look at this trade and see players that other teams were willing to move and we wonder why there was no way we could make it happen. Again... it's probably pretty unfair especially when we consider all the moves that have been made already. But the gut reaction is what it is.
Houston didn't have much patience with Ariza, huh? And Indy got themselves a nice little guard. Not a bad move at all.
