Wild trade proposal sends Kevin Durant to the Boston Celtics

The 2022 NBA playoffs may still be going strong, with the Boston Celtics trading back and forth blows with the Miami Heat in this year’s Eastern Conference Finals, but this hasn’t stopped people from concocting schemes and discussing hypothetical offseason scenarios that they believe could and, in some instances should take place.

Even with the very real possibility of them advancing beyond this round and reaching their first NBA Finals in over a decade, there are plenty of people out there who believe that, this coming summer, the shamrocks should strongly consider making some sizeable adjustments to better position themselves for sustained success moving forward.

Suggested adjustments have seemingly varied from underrated free agency pursuits to full-on blockbuster trades. In regard to this latter route, the bulk of the proposed deals have been absolute pipedreams and, recently, the folks at NBA Analysis Network concocted an incredibly bizarre package that would land the Boston Celtics one of the greatest players of all time in Brooklyn Nets superstar, Kevin Durant.

The proposed deal reads as follows:

Citing the unbelievably menacing duo that would formulate from this transaction, writer James Piercey believes that the firepower that Durant and Jayson Tatum would provide for the C’s could prove to be otherworldly and, with this, would be enough to justify parting ways with Jaylen Brown, especially if they don’t make it to the championship round:

"For the Celtics, this deal would be an all-in bet on the present. A duo of Durant and Jayson Tatum should be unstoppable in 2022-23. As in, more unstoppable than the duo of Tatum and Brown already are.Parting with Brown wouldn’t be easy. This Celtics [team’s] “built, not bought” construction is likely something their front office takes pride in. Still, they’d have to entertain certain offers in pursuit of an NBA championship.An offer of Kevin Durant would probably qualify."

Now, to us at HH, this proposal is a wild one for a multitude of reasons.

One, while there have been rumblings for literally years now that people don’t believe the Jays can coexist together, time and time again the All-Star tandem has proven that they’re more than capable of excelling whilst running alongside each other and, as a result, they’ve guided the Boston Celtics to four Conference Finals appearances in the last six years and are three games away from advancing beyond this point.

Two, let’s say this transaction did actually take place. Not only would their core foundation obviously be getting older (KD is seven years JB’s senior), but, financially, they’d be crippling their salary cap situation moving forward, for Durant is slated to make an average of $49 million per year through the next four season, with his final year under contract paying him an astounding $54.7 million.

Brown, on the other hand, is earning significantly less ($29.7 million) and has just two more years left on his deal. And, even with the fact that the Boston Celtics would be getting off of Al Horford‘s monstrous deal, let’s not forget that the entirety of it comes off the books come the end of next season, while his 2022-23 salary is only partially guaranteed.

Three, sure Durant is an all-world talent when healthy, but the problem is, he’s only managed to play 90 out of a potential total of 226 regular-season games over the last three campaigns due to injuries. Being that he’ll be 34-years-old once the 2022-23 campaign kicks off, his age, coupled with his milage (15-year NBA veteran), and recent health ailments will only continue to become more worrisome as the days go by.

And finally, four… there’s just simply no way Kevin Durant asks out of Brooklyn any time soon which, frankly, is the only way he’d ever be traded from the franchise.

Though they were just swept by this Boston Celtics team in round one, this happened during a year in which their rotation was constantly revolving, thus no real chemistry was built, and with their third-star, Ben Simmons, sidelined. Brooklyn is going all-in for a championship and, with a full offseason of developing chemistry and, hopefully for them they’ll have health on their side, the Nets likely will once again be right back in the title mix.

With this final point, KD is almost certainly not going anywhere and, with the previous three, it’s astronomically unlikely that, if he were to be moved, Massachusetts would not be a landing spot.