Boston Celtics steal Kevin Durant in N.A.N highway robbery mock trade

There’s a trend starting to form in NBA trade circles that sees the Brooklyn Nets blow it up and trade Kevin Durant to the Boston Celtics.

It’s cathartic in a way after seeing all of the mock deals concocted last year to send Jaylen Brown off the Cs, but there’s not a ton of realism in any scenario that sees Durant become a Celtic via a trade.

Still, it’d be some world to live in to see Durant end up in Boston from a transaction where Robert Williams is the primary trade piece sent away and the ‘Jays’ and Marcus Smart got to team up with the NBA’s most lethal isolation weapon.

Here’s one of the three-team swaps NBA Analysis Network came up with to make such a scenario transpire:

"Brooklyn Nets Receive: C/F Robert Williams III, F Gordon Hayward, 2024 First-Round Pick (BOS), 2024 First-Round Pick (CHA), 2027 First-Round Pick (BOS)Charlotte Hornets Receive: C/F Al HorfordBoston Celtics Receive: F Kevin Durant"

The Boston Celtics would steal Kevin Durant in this scenario

So you’re telling me a pair of first-round picks, Robert Williams, and the expiring contract of Al Horford nets the Cs Kevin Durant? Where does the Houdini sign?

The frontcourt would suddenly be low on bodies, but the Cs could hunt for cheap frontcourt depth in the second round of the 2022 NBA Draft (via buying a pick or trading into it) and in the undrafted free agency market. Veterans would surely line up to play for the league minimum to aim to win a championship with this star-studded outfit as well.

A Marcus Smart-Jaylen Brown-Jayson Tatum-Kevin Durant-Grant Williams lineup would be nearly perfect from an on-court fit perspective in the modern age. This trade is far less likely than NBA Analysis Network’s other offering that included Brown in Brooklyn, but it’s the only one HH or the Celtics would go for.