Smith is looking and becoming traded from the Atlanta Hawks because he was a free agent but is now looking to commit to one team and progress from that one team. Smith is a great athletic player and would be great for a team to have him. Yet a Boston deal for Smith, sources said, would almost certainly have to be built around Paul Pierce, because Kevin Garnett isn't waiving his no-trade clause to go to the Atlanta Hawks if he's not willing to waive it to go to the Clipperland. And the prospect of Celtics front-office chief Danny Ainge exiling Pierce to the Hawks for Smith, after everything Pierce has done to restore the Celtics to glory over the past half-decade, is still hard to imagine. One team close to the situation consulted Monday night predicted that the Nets would ultimately land Smith via a three-way trade after ESPN's Chris Broussard reported Feb. 11 that Smith is a prime Brooklyn Nets trade target. Another team pinpointed the Phoenix Suns and Milwaukee Bucks as the strongest contenders to win the Smith sweepstakes. The big worry for both of those teams, though, is whether they could really risk trading for Smith when convincing him to re-sign for the long term is likely to be a serious challenge in either city. Especially with Smith said to be angling for a max deal … and with nobody confusing the Suns or the Bucks with Mikhail Prokohorov's Nets.
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