Meanwhile the Celtics have made an interesting move in signing guard Leandro Barbosa. Barbosa, or as he was called in Phoenix, the Barzillan blur, is a quick injury prone fast break oriented scorer. When in phoenix Barbosa came of the bench behind star Steve Nash and peaking defender Raja Bell. While coming of the bench he proved to be a stud and averaged 19.8 points while coming of the bench one season. During this same season Leandro's team made it to the conference finals where the spurs defeated them. Barbosa then was used as a 3rd combo guard with vets Nash and Bell still around and SG Jared Dudely arriving in Phoenix. After a few injury plagued seasons the undersized guard wasn't tenured. As a F/A he signed with the Raptors who had a lack of depth in the back court. He was suppose to backup DeMarr DeRozan and Jose Calderon in the back court but Jerred Bayeless stole his backup PG minutes and Sonny Weems' career season took away from his minutes as well. He found himself waived during his first Canadian off season. As a F/A again the Blur signed with Indian who was looking for Depth being Guards Darren Collison and George Hill but When Paul George got going and Dahaty Jones re-emerged in the back court he losted his minutes but still put fourth a decent season and remained a solid contributer in Indiana but despite this Indiana made numerous trades and rebuilt they re back court so he was not resigned. Now a F/A at age 33. He signed with the celtics recently and will look to play the fifth guard role and win his first ring.
Also the O.K.C Thunder have traded star SG James Harden and underwhelming center Cole Aldrich away in a blockbuster deal. Similar to the thunders 2011 deal in which budding role player Jeff Green became a celtic. In both cases they did the deal to acquire an aging vet with a long term extension and traded away a budding star who wouldn't resign. Harden wanted more money and to start while the newly acquired Martin is going to be cheaper and will most likely settle for a lesser role while producing similar numbers. But again this could turn out to be a bust like the 2011 deal which since Perk hasn't been the same and They haven't found a solution to they re lack of front court depth. I believe Perkins is a solid third big but is slow and a poor starter both stat wise and health wise. I feel that Perkins is a great locker room player when happy but it was a poor trade in my perspective. Anyway back to the now. Harden is a Scorer but really didn't do much else, he either shot his team out of a game or scored 20+ points. Martin is a more developed player and i think a better all around player. Martin has proven that when healthy (like perk) he is a solid starter and he can score 20 points per game in a season while James Harden is a un-proven guard.