Unthinkable proposal swapping franchise stars gives Boston Celtics ‘culture shock’

Sometimes it seems as though the Boston media is trying to prod and provoke the fanbases of each of the city’s professional sports franchises — with a certain level of trolling being reserved for the team’s winningest franchise throughout history though not recently, the Boston Celtics.

James Stewart of 98.5 The Sports Hub had a particularly poignant prodding saved for Celtics fans in a piece exploring who the team could acquire in a Jayson Tatum proposal: the false hope that Luka Doncic could be acquired by the Cs during the offseason along with the misleading assertion that No. 0 could hit the trade block for any reason.

“If Jayson Tatum is soft and the Celtics need a culture shock, let’s trade Tatum for Luka,” Stewart wrote.

Teaming with Jayson Tatum should be the only possible Boston Celtics scenario for Luka Doncic

While Doncic is undoubtedly one of the highest-upside players in the modern-day association, the Boston Celtics should only pursue him if the goal is to team him with Tatum. Since drafting him at No. 3 in the 2017 NBA draft, Tatum has been an anchor for a franchise that has yet to miss the postseason since his arrival. Doncic has not been as far as Tatum has on his own team, and he even has the dubious distinction of having lost out of a postseason spot to end the 2022-23 season to preserve a lottery pick.

In the event Jaylen Brown ever wanted out around the same time Doncic did, finding a swap for those two makes more sense. Brown is a potential No. 1 option but he’s also someone the Cs are comfortable including in trade talks. If Tatum ever saw his own name thrown into the mix the way Brown’s did in the summer of 2022 during Kevin Durant’s trade demand, and the Celtics ended up not getting something done in a similar fashion, the current core would risk being dead on arrival.

Boston’s front office isn’t thinking about a Doncic deal, but if they ever did, the hope would be that Tatum being untouchable would be at the forefront of their minds.