Basketballnews.com believes Domantas Sabonis trade talks must include Marcus Smart and Robert Williams

Could the current dysfunction of the Indiana Pacers franchise benefit the Boston Celtics ahead of the NBA’s February 10th trade deadline?

With Indy aiming to finally embrace a rebuild after just six playoff wins in the seven seasons since their Eastern Conference finals appearance against the LeBron James-led Miami Heat, the Cs are a team who is being mentioned for their top stars.

Surprisingly, Myles Turner’s name is no longer being connected to Boston like he used to. At one point, not poaching Turner was seen as a failure on former general manager Danny Ainge’s part around these parts.

But at this point, he isn’t even the most attractive big man to the Boston Celtics front office. Instead, it may be his frontcourt partner Domantas Sabonis.

Sabonis is a 2x All-Star that has made the mid-Winter exhibition the past two seasons. Could he be had by President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens and co.?

According to Basketballnews.com’s Nekias Duncan, he could, and it wouldn’t cost the team what many see it taking:

"Threading the needle on a package is where it gets tricky. The Pacers would rightfully ask for Brown first, aiming for the fabled “young All-Star for young All-Star” swap that was mentioned earlier. The Celtics would scoff at that.They have enough mid-tier salaries to make a deal — I’d guess Marcus Smart and Williams (extension kicks in next season) — but the pick capital and rookie-scale prospects (do we feel good about Romeo Langford as the blue-chipper in an All-Star trade?) leave a bit to be desired."

Duncan is right on the money seeing Brown is untouchable in such a deal. It’d make very little sense to welcome Sabonis into a frontcourt that already includes Robert Williams, Al Horford, and Grant Williams (plus the surging Enes Kanter Freedom).

But swapping out Williams for the Lithuanian big man opens up the playing time necessary to feature him in the frontcourt.

Offering Marcus Smart and the man they call ‘Time Lord’ would be the most realistic package the Pacers are going to get. Hometown kid Romeo Langford would be an obvious sweetener, and draft picks would be a must if Brown isn’t part of the offer.

It’ll be interesting to see if these two teams would do business together. They’ve completed one deal since 1985, and it was for Colton Iverson, a second-round pick who never played in the NBA and instead took his talents overseas, where he has been a pro since the 2013-14 season.