There is a very good chance that the Cleveland Cavaliers win the Eastern Conference again next season. Propelled by a trio of Isaiah Thomas, LeBron James, and Kevin Love, Cleveland might still be the best team in the east, mostly because they still have James and he is still the best basketball player in the world. They will probably go on to play the Golden State Warriors, they will probably lose, and the Boston Celtics will watch it all go down, just as they did last year.
It’s important to say all of that as a way to set up this phrase: The Celtics did the right thing by trading Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, and the Brooklyn Nets’ first round pick in the 2018 NBA Draft for Kyrie Irving, even if the deal does not lead to an NBA title (or, for that matter, an Eastern Conference championship) next season.
Seriously, it’s ok. Boston still had to make this move. What the Celtics did on Tuesday night was go out and obtain a potential franchise cornerstone for an undersized point guard with a bum hip, a 3-and-D wing who would have taken time away from their other young and talented wing players, a rookie big man, and a draft pick that, in fairness, could land Cleveland a potential superstar in Michael Porter or Marvin Bagley.
You can obviously look at this differently — Thomas bled green in a way that no player has since Paul Pierce or Kevin Garnett, Crowder is the team’s designated LeBron Stopper™ (to whatever extent he can accomplish this), Zizic has some hype around him as he’s coming stateside, and Porter/Bagley both rule. This is 100 percent fair and accurate.
But consider some of the dynamics at play in this deal. Thomas is going to be a free agent next summer, has already said he’s going to demand a ton of money, and giving a long-term deal to an undersized point guard who will turn 30 during year one of an extension is really risky. It cannot be stressed enough that cutting ties for monetary reasons with someone who played in a postseason game just hours after his sister passed away is gross, but Danny Ainge and the rest of the Celtics brass decided to do what they they felt was the best solution. While it sucks, sports are cruel and rough like this sometimes.
So instead of going into a situation where they either looked bad for ditching Thomas or risked looking bad for paying him, they went with a third option: Turn him (along with some other pieces) into another star. Irving is 25 and under contract for two more years, at which point he seems willing to come to terms with Boston on an extension. That might end up not being the case, but it makes sense on a basketball level that the Celtics would rather give a long-term deal to Irving when he’s 27 than Thomas when he’s 29.
Additionally, Boston’s much-heralded war chest of assets only lost one major piece in this deal. Sure, giving up the Brooklyn pick is rough, but that might not be as big of a deal as people think — thanks to the deal that they made with the Philadelphia 76ers prior to the 2017 NBA Draft, Boston could end up getting a really high pick in 2018. It will receive the Lakers’ selection if it falls anywhere from 2-5 next year, so while there’s almost no chance at ending up with the top pick next year, Boston could get the next best thing.
But beyond that, this deal did not cost the Celtics still boast a ton of future picks, while all of their talented young players who get mentioned in potential deals are still around. Jayson Tatum is still in green, as are Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, and Jaylen Brown. It’s easy to see a scenario where the Celtics hold onto all of them and let them develop with the hopes that at least one of them — most likely Tatum — turns into a star. It’s also just as easy to see any of them getting moved, along with some future draft picks, as Boston pursues another star with the hopes of winning a ring sooner rather than later.
There’s a ton of risk associated in a move like this, especially because as long as LeBron is in Cleveland, the Cavaliers will be the favorites to win the East. This is even further magnified if he stays in Cleveland after this season and the Cavaliers get the No. 1 pick, giving him a young running mate who could take some of the pressure off of him, and extend the team’s reign of dominance for a few more years.
In a league where windows open and close in no time at all, though, Boston decided to be ready for when Cleveland’s closes and theirs flies open. And considering how it accomplished this without giving up most of the things that have made them a threat to swoop in and get anyone on the trade block, going out and getting Irving should go down as a smart move by Boston’s front office.
