Two former Boston Celtics teammates swapped for each other in proposed trade

The Ringer's Zach Kram came up with a mock trade proposal involving two former Boston Celtics teammates during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, Gordon Hayward and Marcus Morris, that'd send the former to the Philadelphia 76ers and the latter to the Charlotte Hornets along with Robert Covington and two second-round picks.

"...compared to the likes of Siakam or Alex Caruso (if the Bulls begrudgingly decide to trade him), Hayward could probably be obtained for a much lighter return," Kram prefaced before saying, "He might even be a buyout candidate if Charlotte can’t strike a deal by the deadline. In this proposal, he’d fetch two second-round picks for the Hornets, which is more than they’d get by just buying him out. Morris and Covington—both of whom joined the 76ers in the James Harden trade—have expiring contracts and rank ninth and 10th, respectively, on the 76ers in minutes, so they’re easy inclusions to match Hayward’s salary."

Such a deal could be seen as an overpay for the Sixers considering the lack of significant needle-moving it does in the short-term, but it's the kind of overpay one makes to go all-in on a roster that may not be able to be kept together much longer due to how much it'll cost this coming offseason.

Gordon Hayward and Jayson Tatum agree: 2018-19 Boston Celtics dynamic was 'terrible'

Hayward and Jayson Tatum both agreed that the dynamic in the 2018-19 locker room was not conducive to winning -- though they went about their descriptions of that team with wildly diverging methods.

“We all had too many agendas,” Hayward told Paul George on the “Podcast P” show (h/t NESN). “The agenda to win the whole thing was not the main one. Not to blame anyone, either. It’s all human nature. There was too many of us in the exact same position. We all needed the ball. We all rocked with the ball."

“That (expletive) was terrible,” Tatum said (h/t MassLive), per The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach. “You guys saw it. We’ve all talked about it. It didn’t work out how we wanted it to, and we were a very talented team but it just didn’t mesh the way we wanted it to. And that’s all right. Guys learned and everybody’s moved on from it.

“But what Gordon said was kind of right. Guys would come back from injury, guys were trying to prove themselves, like myself. I was trying to be better than I was last year, and it was just kind of a tough year.”

Good thing two members of the 2018-19 Boston Celtics were being traded for each other, and not to the same team.