Boston Celtics: Heavy reveals potential trade package to land Anthony Davis

It feels like the Boston Celtics have been winning entirely too often in recent weeks for there to be a re-ignition of discussions regarding a potential breaking up of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum as the team’s star pairing.

Here we are, though, because the NBA rumor mill has a fetish for it.

The latest attempt to break up the C’s core comes in the form of an anonymous report from Heavy.com that brings Anthony Davis to the Boston Celtics for a trio of Cs wings. Talen Horton-Tucker would also be involved in the swap heading to Beantown.

Here’s the package a source spoke to Adam Taylor about:

"“It was no secret Danny wanted him (in 2019). He would have given up Tatum in a heartbeat for AD. They wanted to offer Brown, but it would have come down to Tatum. And he would have done it in the end, I think. Now the Lakers would want Tatum back, but there is no way the Celtics do that.“But put AD in a deal with Horton-Tucker for Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, Aaron Nesmith? The Lakers would have to consider that. I’d take it,” said the executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity."

Why the Boston Celtics wouldn’t do this

Anthony Davis has arguably already jumped the shark as an elite big man in the NBA. After suffering through losing season after losing season with the New Orleans Pelicans barring two postseason appearances in 2016 and 2018, he helped bring a title to the Lakers in his first season with the purple and gold.

Since then? L.A. has played like a low postseason seed that relies too much on LeBron James still and hasn’t been a legitimate entry into a single championship conversation since the Lake Buena Vista bubble in 2020.

Jaylen Brown, on the other hand, should have made two straight All-Star teams and is improving every facet of his game. While he has had his own fair share of injuries, he is nowhere near the injury-prone asset Davis has been throughout his 10-year career.

As for the rest of the deal, Talen Horton-Tucker may be the worst player in the deal when it’s all said and done. Aaron Nesmith has shown flashes of brilliance as a tertiary scorer when given opportunities, while Marcus Smart’s ceiling is one that THT hits if everything in the world broke the right way for the current Laker wing.

This trade is a hard pass as things stand. Should the Cs revert back to the malaise that dominated the early portion of the 2021-22 season, we can have a discussion then.