A botched 2020 trade would have changed the Boston Celtics' entire landscape

Acquiring Turner likely means no Kristaps Porzingis either

The same scenario with Horford also applies to Porzingis. Turner, Timelord, and Theis filling out their frontcourt rotation likely means the Celtics won't go big-man hunting in the future. This means Porzingis likely goes somewhere like Utah, as he may have in 2023.

Even though an injury took him out for most of the Celtics' playoff run, Porzingis pushed the Celtics to another level. There's no telling what the Celtics would look like had they never brought him in. They would have never known what he could do if they had never had the need to add another big.

The Gordon Hayward fiasco could have really set the Celtics back, and to be fair, Boston's 2020-21 season was not an enjoyable ride. However, look how much they've rebounded since then. All of their progress may have been negated had they relented and traded for Turner.

For the record, none of this is a shot at Turner at all. He's a better player now than he was back in 2020. If the Celtics had known then what kind of player he would become, maybe they would have relented. Especially knowing the bad injury luck that was to come from Hayward.

The Celtics have placed an emphasis on adding big men who can space the floor while providing rim protection. He would have helped in that regard, but adding him would have come at the cost of never getting Horford, White, or Porzingis, and it could have led to them having to swallow Walker's contract whole.

Boston doesn't have to worry about it now, but a lot would have been different if they had made such a drastic change right then and there. The timeline may not have been necessarily worse, but it definitely would have been different.