I don’t see a conceivable downside to the Celtics trading Eddie House, Bill Walker, and J.R Giddens for Nate Robinson (and technically, Marcus Landry). It’s a pretty terrific upgrade talent-wise, and personally I’m not sure you can ever have too little Eddie House on a given team. He’s admittedly been better with the C’s in the last few years than I ever would’ve expected, but come on. Dude. You’re still Eddie House.
And Nate Robinson is still Nate Robinson. That means that if you give him the shots on the right night, he’ll explode for 41 points. And worst case, he’ll give you everything that Eddie House could, but with better driving ability, more athleticism, and some actual room for growth. Plus, Eddie has always benefited from the Celtics’ internal structure; he was never jerked around in the rotation, but given a role and told to do his damn job. That kind of order — and the clearly defined hierarchy that exists in Boston at point guard, in which Rondo will always come first — could very well give Robinson the structure he needs to properly thrive; in the same way an abstract painter needs rules in order to break them, Nate seems to need a proven structure in order to provide chaos.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. There’s still a bit of a problem in that Boston is in no position to really compete for the title with this group, regardless of Robinson’s addition. Bummer there, I suppose.
