Boston Celtics: 2 Tristan Thompson Charlotte Hornets trades

Game 2 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals is tonight for the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets. Like the first game of the series, Vegas expects the Cs to potentially lose by double digits at the Barclays Center.

It’s an unfortunate reality that Boston is not only expected to lose but not even be competitive. That’s what having a banged-up rotation while playing one of the league’s most talented teams will do.

If you’re looking for scapegoats for what will likely go down as a lost season in the careers of the C’s two franchise stars (the Jays), blaming injuries to the team’s top four players is the easiest short-term answer to explain away.

But a realistic look at this roster reveals a shallow rotation buoyed by what has been relative overperformance in recent years.

Losing Brad Wanamaker and Enes Kanter shouldn’t have tanked the second unit the way it did. Besides those two, every core member of the team returned at the onset of the 2020-21 season.

Perhaps the issue was the lack of advancement from Danny Ainge in the 2020 offseason. While the Los Angeles Lakers, Brooklyn Nets, and Milwaukee Bucks added several impact role players for cheap (Montrezl Harrel, Marc Gasol, Jeff Green, Bryn Forbes, Bobby Portis), the Cs swung and missed on their two additions.

One of them (Jeff Teague) has already been shown the door. The other, Tristan Thompson, could face a similar fate in the offseason.

Bleacher Report’s Greg Swartz concocted a salary dump deal to send the 2011 #4 draft pick to the Charlotte Hornets. While trading Thompson is a smart move, returning just a 2023 second-round pick is bad business.

HH is in the interest of moving the needle forward more, so we have come up with the following two Thompson-Hornets deals instead: