Got a problem? He'll deal with it

Danny The Dealer is at it again.

It's becoming an annual thing. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water . . .

Danny The Dealer pulls the trigger and suddenly the ever-dwindling number of people around here who actually care about the Celtics have something to talk about.

No one can say the Danny The Dealer regime has been dull. Antoine goes. Ricky comes. Antoine returns. Antoine just floats away (the Heat have already identified him as nothing more than a fringe curiosity, by the way). And now, Ricky goes. It never pays to get too comfortable with the Celtics' core unit du jour, because there's always a chance that when we wake up there will be another Celtics' core unit du jour in place.

But first . . . How inevitable was it that Danny Ainge and Kevin McHale would someday do business? They were best friends while teammates on the Celtics. They have always remained in communication. A Celtics-Timberwolves deal was bound to happen.

So what about it? How does this help either team? According to the TNT gang, this is a deal that hurts both teams. On Thursday night, Messrs. Barkley and Anthony framed it in the context of how this will affect Kevin Garnett, and the mutual conclusion was that it wouldn't, not one bit. On the flip side, Barkley opined that, and I'm only slightly paraphrasing, ''The Celtics now couldn't beat UConn." He liked the idea so much he kept repeating it.

Let me go on the record: I say the Celtics, plus 30, OK?

I don't know whether it will help them or hurt them, but I do know they will have a different look. Wally Szczerbiak is a legitimately great outside shooter, and I mean outside as in serious range. As of this instant, he is a 50 percent career shooter who has shot as high as 45.5 percent on threes and who has never been below 34 percent from beyond the arc. When Ainge said, ''We feel Wally can complement Paul in a different way," we can take that at face value. Paul Pierce and Ricky Davis did offer many of the same offensive attributes. Szczerbiak will offer a different look, for sure.

There's something else we know for sure. The defense is going to suffer. I'm not suggesting that Davis was making a bid for the All-Defensive Team, but at least he had the physical attributes to play some D when he put his mind to it. He's very much a modern NBA athlete.

Szczerbiak is an old-fashioned NBA player. He is not the fleetest of foot. He's sort of a high-grade, 21st century Don Nelson, getting by on a great shot and making do in the other areas. One reason he was not an instant, no-questions-asked starter from the day he walked into the NBA from Miami of Ohio 6 1/2 seasons ago is because there are a lot of people he can't guard. Doc Rivers has been upset with his team's defense for most of the season. Wally Szczerbiak isn't going to improve that situation.

I'm going to miss Ricky Davis, and when he got here I never dreamed I'd wind up saying that. Davis turned out to be a hard-working, versatile, downright lovable player who loved living in the spotlight. He was a big favorite among kids, many of whom are, no doubt, in mini-shock today. Danny The Dealer was right about Davis, and again I think we can take him at face value when he said, ''We like Ricky. This is not about us getting rid of Ricky."

But it sure is about getting rid of Mark Blount. What an object lesson he turned out to be. Here's a guy whose whole shtick was that he had worked and worked and worked to make himself into such a useful and worthy player, so impressing the team that he was rewarded with the proverbial Big Contract at the conclusion of the 2003-04 season. He was never going to be an elite center, but at 28 it looked as if he could be a second-tier guy you could win with, a la, say, Jamaal Magloire or Rasho Nesterovic.

Of course, there is always a danger in pro sports of handing over the big guaranteed money. What if the guy pockets the money, retires, and never bothers to tell anyone? What if, in other words, he plays the way Blount has for the past year and 42 games?

You get sick to your stomach, that's what. And then you hope you can find someone who will take him and his suddenly ugly contract, which is still good for $28 million, plus a 15 percent trade kicker. Let's see if the Ainge-McHale friendship can survive all this.

In return the Celtics get another celebrated underachiever in Michael Olowokandi, a former No. 1 overall pick in the draft in one of those years (1998) when there is no real No. 1, but someone has to go first, so it was this 7-footer from London via the University of the Pacific. He was a cute story in the beginning. It was a nice little tale involving a head coach who had always joked that someone must always man the phone because you never know when a 7-footer might call. Then one day during lunch hour the phone rang and it was this polite kid from London by the name of Michael Olowokandi who was saying how very much he wanted to play college ball in America, and have I mentioned that I'm 7 feet tall? The bonus laugher was that he was enchanted by the thought of playing alongside the Pacific, and, of course, no one told him that U of P was located in Stockton, Calif., which was so far inland it might as well be in Nebraska.

He, too, worked and worked and became a No. 1 pick and now, 7 1/2 years later, people wonder if he even likes basketball. What the Celtics like most about him is that his contract will expire at the end of the season. He will get to watch Kendrick Perkins and Al Jefferson play, and perhaps he'll be entertained.

As for Marcus Banks and Justin Reed, good luck to them. Banks represents an Ainge boo-boo, for sure. He was Danny The Dealer's first No. 1 pick (13th overall, acquired in a trade with Memphis) and to this day he's not a point guard. The one thing he can do is apply some heat on the ball. That, and hit an occasional three. But Doc preferred Orien Greene, who can also put some heat on the ball and who is 6-4 and, if they got real lucky, could develop into the next Don Chaney someday. Reed is a hustling kid who might have a little bit of a career, or he might not. And then coming the other way is 6-11 Dwayne Jones, who can keep Delonte West company as they retell those Big Five stories. He's a bookkeeping matter.

I just hope this means that Paul Pierce is staying. But I must warn you that we're still almost a month shy of the trading deadline and they don't call him Danny The Dealer for nothing.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.