Baxter Holmes of the Boston Globe spoke to rival execs who offered up anonymous advice for Celtics GM Danny Ainge heading into tonight’s draft. “You’ve got to get Love,” said one Western Conference scout. “You could argue or suggest that you roll the dice on Andrew Wiggins being an All-Pro or Joel Embiid being the next dominant center, but you can’t argue that anybody at 6 and 17 will be better than what Kevin Love, barring injury, will be for a minimum of the next 10 years. You’re basically dealing for one of the conservatively 10 best players in basketball. You can’t turn that down.” Meanwhile, another exec says Boston should hold on to their two first-round choices. Here’s more from around the league..
- Marc Berman of the New York Post (on Twitter) hears that the Knicks have no intention of waiving Samuel Dalembert to turn their taxpayer mini midlevel exception to a full mid-level exception of $5MM. The Knicks like the shot blocker and want him on the roster this season.
- It’s hard to get read on how far Dario Saric will fall, tweets Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated. Several lottery teams liked him before he signed his deal in Turkey and one exec thinks that the Celtics at No. 17 is his floor.
- Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com wonders if the Tyson Chandler deal can help the Knicks hold on to Carmelo Anthony.
- A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com (on Twitter) opines that the Celtics won’t land Love today as they have a better shot of getting a deal done in-season.
- The Knicks acquired a $3,637,073 trade exception equal to the salary of Raymond Felton in Wednesday’s trade with the Mavericks. Meanwhile, the Mavs get a trade exception worth $1,536,960 from Shane Larkin’s salary.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.