Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

The Los Angeles Lakers are 18-25 on the season and currently out of the playoff picture in the Western Conference.

The Lakers have been unable to take advantage of their best four players under first year head coach Mike D’Antoni.

D’Antoni has made the decision to bring former perennial All-Star Pau Gasol off the bench because in his offense, Gasol and Dwight Howard aren’t playing well together. Howard has had one of his worst seasons in years too and Steve Nash is in the same boat.

The Lakers need to change something and that could come in the form of a trade. Amazingly, this season is not totally lost yet as they are only 4.5 games behind the Houston Rockets for the 8th seed in the Western Conference.

ESPN’s Marc Stein is reporting that multiple teams are speculating that the Lakers could engage in a 3-team trade to bring Rudy Gay to LA. The potential 3-team deal would send Gasol to the Boston Celtics and Paul Pierce to the Memphis Grizzlies.

Gasol and Gay have been tied to trade rumors virtually all season. The Grizzlies thought they were going to need to save money to avoid future luxury tax implications by getting rid of Gay but in light of their most recent trade, now may not have to.

Pierce has been linked to only some trade rumors and with the Celtics starting to really struggle, we will see his name thrown out there more and more.

This would be a gigantic trade swapping three former alpha dogs of their teams midway through the season. Other names would likely be involved but these three would be the biggest part of the trade.

Bringing Gay in for Gasol isn’t something that will drastically help the Lakers over night. Gay would be a better fit under D’Antoni and allow for the small lineups to continue with Earl Clark at the four but it won’t make the Lakers title contenders again.

The trade deadline is Thursday, Feb. 21.

Allen decided to go with the Heat instead of Boston despite the Celtics offering Allen nearly double the salary Miami could.

The defending champion Heat were very much recruiting Allen including LeBron James and Dwyane Wade expressing their desire for him to join the Heat via Twitter.

“We’re not stealing him,” LeBron told Yahoo! Sports. “He’s unrestricted. He isn’t with nobody man. Ray is a huge piece out there. Who wouldn’t want a dead-eye shooter like that, a complete professional and a champion. He has all the qualities for a team to get over the hump or to compete for a championship each and every year.”

LeBron is right. Who wouldn’t want Allen? And Allen clearly chose the place he feels give him the best chance to win a title before his career is over.

Teaming up with other superstars isn’t new for Allen. In 2007, he joined Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in Boston and they won a title in their first year together and made it to the Finals two years after that and lost.

The rumored deterioration of Allen’s relationship with Boston point guard Rajon Rondo is part of the reason Allen made this decision, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.

Allen was also upset by the Celtics’ attempt to trade him at the trade deadline to Memphis this past season. The Celtics were shopping Allen from time to time at some point over the past few seasons.

The Celtics re-signed Garnett to a 3-year, $34 million deal this offseason and also signed free agent Jason Terry who plays the same position as Allen. Allen was not starting in Boston by the end of the season with Avery Bradley assuming the position.

These are all reasons Allen may have considered in deciding on Miami instead of sticking with Boston. It will be weird to see Allen wearing the jersey next season of one of his biggest rivals but that’s sports in 2012.

The Heat are better with Allen for sure. It’s not drastic but these are the kinds of moves that championship teams need to make to be able to repeat.

Allen has made more 3-pointers than anyone in the history of the NBA so it’s no surprise that teams see him as this valuable despite the fact that he will be 37 years old next season.

The Miami Heat emerged as the early favorites to sign Allen this summer. They can only offer him a little more than $3 million per season but Allen would go there to try and win another ring with the defending champs and LeBron.

The Boston Celtics have now made it clear they are not going to just let Allen walk away.

“We want Ray back, and we’re approaching this as the first thing we have to get done,” Boston GM Danny Ainge told the Boston Herald. “It’s our No. 1 priority.”

The Celtics can offer Allen a contract worth double what the Heat can at $6 million per year. Boston and Miami would most likely offer Allen two-year deals.

The Celtics were rumored to possibly break up after this season but have already re-signed Kevin Garnett to a 3-year, $34 million deal. They will also still have Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo back for next season.

The Celtics are also interested in pursuing free agents O.J. Mayo and Jason Terry. In the draft, they worked on getting bigger drafting Jared Sullinger and Fab Melo in the first round.

Boston may not be going away as quickly as we thought they might. The Heat will still have to worry about them at least a little.

Signing Allen in Miami would be a huge get for them. The Heat don’t have much cap space at all to go after free agents so it looks like getting veterans to come over for a year or two at the end of their career to chase a championship is their best chance of getting better this way.

Allen would be a great fit in Miami just like any shooter is playing alongside LeBron and Wade.

Boston and Miami aren’t the only two teams going after Allen but they are the two frontrunners right now. Dallas, Phoenix and the Clippers have also showed interest in going after Allen.

LeBron James scored 45 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and dished out five assists as the Miami Heat beat the Boston Celtics in Boston in Game 6 98-79 to push this series to a Game 7.

LeBron played the first 45 minutes of the game and went 19-for-26 from the field. LeBron really had his fadeaway jump shot going in the first half and that opened up the rest of his game.

The Celtics had no answer. Rajon Rondo led Boston with 21 points and 10 assists but did have seven turnovers.

The Celtics were just 1-for-14 from three in the game. Paul Pierce went 0-for-6 from three and was 4-for-18 from the field in general and scored just nine points.

Dwyane Wade was the only other Heat player to score in double-figure with 17.

Chris Bosh played 28 minutes and scored seven points with six rebounds.

The Heat will go back home Saturday night for Game 7 to try and get past the Celtics. The winner of that game will play Game 1 of the NBA Finals in Oklahoma City Tuesday night.

Greg M. Cooper-US PRESSWIRE

Rajon Rondo and Russell Westbrook were linked via trade talks at the beginning of this season that envisioned the Celtics and Thunder swapping their point guards.

Rondo had more trade rumors surrounding his name than Westbrook but the thought of the two being traded was an interesting prospective.

The two obviously stayed put and helped lead their teams to the Conference Finals. The Celtics and Thunder are both down 0-2 now. Would this be the case if Rondo were on OKC and Westbrook a Celtic?

Rondo is just coming off perhaps the best game of his career in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals in Miami. He played all 53 minutes of an overtime loss, scored a career-high 44 points to go with 10 assists, eight rebounds and three steals.

Westbrook is back to receiving the same criticism that he did last year in the playoffs. The Thunder have lost two in a row to the Spurs and he is shooting more than Kevin Durant.

Rondo and Westbrook are both very different players who would completely change the other’s team if they were traded for each other.

Would the Thunder be better overall with Rondo instead of Westbrook?

Rondo would help Durant reach his potential as an offensive player quicker than Westbrook is helping him. Rondo has led the league in assists the past two seasons and is one of the best in the league at getting great shooters great looks.

Durant would thrive playing with Rondo and you could envision him scoring well over 30 points per game.

Rondo would also be able to extract the most out of Oklahoma City’s offensively challenged bigs. Kendrick Perkins might not become an offensive stud but Serge Ibaka might really take off alongside Rondo.

Ibaka possesses a very formidable midrange game and is one of the best athletes in the league. Looking at what Rondo does with Brandon Bass, he and Ibaka could become very deadly together.

James Harden would also probably get better overall with Rondo. Harden would even make more sense as a starter with Rondo instead of Westbrook since Rondo isn’t someone who needs to shoot even at all to be effective.

Harden has some Paul Pierce in his DNA and is a pretty good spot-up shooter so he would definitely fit right in next to Rondo running the show.

The Thunder would lose one of the true offensive studs in the league right now in Westbrook. Westbrook does so many things for this team and at times becomes the best player on the floor, even better than Durant.

The Thunder are better when Westbrook shoots more than Durant given their current roster and style of play. It can be criticized but it has worked.

But if the Thunder becoming a championship team means Durant needs to reach new heights, Westbrook could be holding him back in a sense while Rondo would aid Durant in his ascension to legend status.

Durant-Westbrook-Harden-Ibaka is only 90 years old. They will keep improving. Durant and Westbrook may coexist well enough to eventually win a title.

Westbrook will get the blame if they don’t and all we’ll be able to do is wonder if Rondo could have made a difference.

In March Durant led the Thunder to an 11-5 record and averaged 27.6 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game. Durant had a 40-point, 17-rebound game in the Thunder’s double-overtime win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Perhaps Durant’s best game was his 28-9-8 line against LeBron James and the Miami Heat in the Thunder’s 103-87 victory over the Heat.

Durant’s closest competition for the award this month was teammate Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love.

Paul Pierce won the award for the Eastern Conference.

Richard Rowe-US PRESSWIRE

James Harden’s rookie contract will be up after the 2013-14 season. The Oklahoma City Thunder of course plan to re-sign he and Serge Ibaka at this point. This could become tricky considering that in 2015 Harden will be the best shooting guard in the NBA.

This past week we saw Harden play some of the best basketball of his career with games scoring 30 then 33 points, both career-highs at the time. Right now Harden is coming off the bench averaging 17.2 points per game with a 21.4 PER. He won the Sixth Man of the Year award in the first week of the season.

In terms of PER, Harden is only behind Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade and Many Ginobili as far as shooting guards are concerned. I’ve said before that Ginobili is the type of player Harden is turning into.

Three years from now those three are going to decline considerably and Harden will be all of just 25 years old. There aren’t many other shooting guards out there who are going to be challenging Harden as the best at their position in the league.

Let’s go through the contenders assuming to not count anyone who is not yet in the league since they would only have been in the league for two years anyway by 2015.

Eric Gordon, Monta Ellis, Paul George and MarShon Brooks are Harden’s competition. They all have at least an outside shot of passing Harden but it is unlikely especially considering their current playing situations.

Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE

The Thunder are going to have a chance to have on their team in 2015 the best small forward in the league (Durant), a top three point guard (Westbrook) and the best shooting guard (Harden) and maybe even the best low-post defender (Ibaka). That is crazy to think about how good this team’s future looks.

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s kind of important to have a good two-guard if you’re interested in winning championships.

In the last 12 years, the best two-guard on the team that won the NBA title scored an average of 22.5 points per game, significantly higher than any other position. Having a shooting guard who can fill it up is an essential ingredient toward winning championships.

People love to salivate over the all-around small forward but having your best player be a “jack of all trades” type doesn’t seem to necessarily result in championships as much.

Since 2000, only Paul Pierce has averaged over 13.3 points per game as the starting small forward of a championship team. Usually teams that win the title have a defensive stopper as their small forward.

Kevin Durant is obviously the small forward of the future for Oklahoma City and will always be their leading scorer. The direction Durant is headed as an offensive player is (hopefully) closer to the player that Dirk Nowitzki became in the playoffs last season (back to basket scorer).

The future makeup of the Thunder is starting to remind me more and more of the Spurs of the last decade. Durant is the Tim Duncan of the team as the reliable post-up scorer. Russell Westbrook is the lightning quick point guard who is score-first like Tony Parker. And James Harden is of course the Ginobili coming off the bench.

Before I sometimes questioned the makeup of the Thunder team in terms of where they got their offense from and if it could work in winning a championship. But the more you watch them grow together and try to project their future makeup it really makes you see just how good they are going to become.

The key to all of it is going to be Harden flying under the radar and becoming the best two-guard on the planet.

Richard Rowe-US PRESSWIRE

The Thunder have the best record in the NBA but they don’t necessarily play the best “team” basketball. The Thunder rely more on isolation scoring than any other team in the league and turn the ball over nearly 17 times per game.

Oklahoma City’s starting point guard, Russell Westbrook, averages just 5.5 assists per game, down from 8.2 last season and 8.0 two years ago. The assist numbers from Westbrook are something that needs to improve without question.

With Kevin Durant and James Harden both having the best seasons of their careers, the fourth option for Oklahoma City, Serge Ibaka, hasn’t improved as much as some thought he would.

Ibaka is leading the NBA averaging 3.2 blocks per game but is only scoring 8.2 points per game. Last season Ibaka averaged 9.9 points per game with that number really going up after the Jeff Green trade.

Not a lot has really changed in Ibaka’s game this year though. He still takes that 16-foot jump shot when he gets it and doesn’t have much of a game at the rim aside from finishing with dunks and layups.

It’s Westbrook’s playmaking that has gone down. Westbrook and Ibaka should be a lethal combination for Oklahoma City and it is when they do it. They just don’t do it enough.

Douglas Jones-US PRESSWIRE

SportVu Technology recently posted a study where they researched the highest field goal percentages by passer. They tracked every pass thrown by every NBA player so far this season.

Paul Pierce leads the league with his teammates shooting .568 percent off his passes. The top combination in the NBA is when Ricky Rubio sets up Nikola Pekovic who shoots .707 percent off Rubio’s passes.

Up there in the top combinations is Westbrook and Ibaka. Ibaka shoots .634 percent on passes from Westbrook. Most of those passes are Westbrook kicking out to Ibaka on pick-and-pops for midrange jumpers or Westbrook finding Ibaka on cuts for dunks and layups.

Using Westbrook and Ibaka together should really become more of a staple of the Thunder offense. Help can’t come easily when Durant and James Harden are also on the floor and by this point in the season, defenses are much more focused on Westbrook trying to score than Ibaka.

Ibaka has played great basketball the last two postseasons and will of course be another key component this year for the Thunder. As the games slow down into more of a halfcourt setting, Oklahoma City is going need a little bump in scoring from Ibaka if they want to make it to the NBA Finals.

It will be up to Westbrook to make this happen.

David Butler II-US PRESSWIRE

Thunder (3-game winning streak)
106.1 Offensive Efficiency (2nd)
99.2 Defensive Efficiency (14th)
96.2 Pace (4th)

Celtics (4-game losing streak)
97.9 Offensive Efficiency (23rd)
95.3 Defensive Efficiency (3rd)
91.0 Pace (29th)

The Thunder have been hot of late and the Celtics haven’t. The Celtics have had to deal with a lot of injuries and other reason for players missing games and have lost their last four. Kevin Garnett missed the last two games for personal reasons but is expected to return tonight. Rajon Rondo will also be out tonight serving the second game of a two-game suspension from earlier this week for throwing a ball at a referee. The odds are really stacked against the Celtics and the Thunder should have no problems tonight. James Harden and Nick Collison sat out two nights ago for the Thunder but neither had serious injuries and both could play tonight.

Thunder keys to the game

1. Durant and Westbrook

No duo has been hotter in the NBA than Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and there’s no reason they shouldn’t continue to ride this hot streak right into the All-Star Break. The duo each scored 31 points in the Thunder’s win over New Orleans Monday night and combined for 91 the night before against Denver. In the first meeting against Boston this season when the Thunder won 97-88, Durant scored 28 and Westbrook 26, including a barrage of threes to close out the Celtics late in the fourth quarter. Tonight will be impressive to watch Westbrook as Avery Bradley will likely be assigned the task of guarding him. Bradley is one of the better defenders in the league and an athlete but he will just look like a poor man’s Westbrook tonight.

2. Fast break

The Celtics are one of the older teams in the league and play the second slowest pace. The Thunder are at their bets when they get out and run and without Rondo tonight Boston should really have trouble trying to keep up with the Thunder. Look for the Thunder to run every chance they get even more so than usual tonight.

3. Contesting every shot

It sounds simple but it is really important when playing to Boston to sell out and get a hand up on every shot. The Celtics are the worst team in the league on the offensive glass so it all comes down to stopping that first option on offense when playing them. Without Rondo the Celtics shouldn’t be able to get as many good looks as they normally would. Paul Pierce played his bets game of the season up to that point the first time these teams met and the load will be even heavier for him tonight. Oklahoma City just needs to make everything difficult and they should have no trouble blowing out Boston tonight.

Prediction: Oklahoma City wins 103-79.