August 18, 1980
The Celtics today signed forward Cedric Maxwell to a long-term contract, solving their most pressing problem of the moment.
Maxwell became a free agent at the end of last season and the effort to get him re-signed has been a struggle between Celtic general manager Red Auerbach and agent Ron Grinker for the past two months.
Twice the negotiations bogged down with Auerbach threatening to withdraw the Celtics' original offer and Grinker warning that he would sign Maxwell with some other NBA club.
Three weeks ago Indiana was reportedly very interested in signing Maxwell, who has led the league in shooting percentage the past two seasons.
However, the Indiana bid never materialized and the efforts to bring Maxwell back to Boston intensified in the past week with more discussions between Auerbach and Grinker.
The final deal was struck over the phone this past weekend and the Celtics called the press conference at Boston Garden today to make the announcement.
Auerbach is still trying to make a new deal with backcourt ace Tiny Archibald, who also became a free agent at the end of last season. He met several times last week with Archibald's agent, Irwin Weinerk, and that contract problem could also be ended sometime later this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment