Once Kevin Durant bolted the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors, attention shifted to Russell Westbrook’s future with the team. The buzz now from Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck is that a Westbrook trade could happen “sooner rather than later,” and that the most likely destination is the Boston Celtics.
It was reported in the immediate aftermath of Durant’s decision that the Thunder would look to renegotiate and extend Westbrook’s contract to lock him up, but it soon came out that the point guard had little interest in going that route. That sparked the notion of a trade, although The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski recently said there were signs that the Thunder star might feel emboldened to stay in Oklahoma City.
However, Beck’s report states the contrary and suggests that Westbrook plans on moving on next summer, making a trade likely. Enter the Celtics in possible trade talks. Boston already got Al Horford before missing on Durant in free agency, but Celtics president Danny Ainge still has a treasure trove of assets to bring to the table in trade talks with Thunder general manager Sam Presti.
The question is what the Celtics would be willing to give up considering Westbrook is about to be a free agent next summer. If Boston got some assurances from him that he’d stick around, Ainge may be willing to unload a bunch of his most valuable assets (Nets pick swap in 2017, Nets unprotected first-round pick in 2018, etc.) to bring in a legitimate superstar.
But if Westbrook is hesitant to commit, Ainge would then likely be hesitant to commit some of those assets. And in that case, Presti shouldn’t be in a major hurry to deal Westbrook.
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