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Where have the Boston Celtics landed among the NBA’s biggest trades of the last 20 years?

justin quinn
·3 min read

With every NBA season come trades that change the structure of not only the teams that make them, but oftentimes the structure of the league itself when they are involving players of a certain star level.

And while such mega-deals are by nature not especially common, at least one or two happen every year that change our expectations — if not realities — of how that respective season will play out. The Boston Celtics have made several such deals in recent league history, but where have they stacked up against the other major moves in the Association over the last 20 years?

ESPN’s Tim Bontemps broke out his magnifying glass to try and rank the biggest deals of the last two decades, and the Celtics came up twice out of the top 15 such trades in Bontemps’ estimation.

Boston might be ranked lower than their fans might like, but in the assessment, the ESPN analyst offers compelling arguments for why they landed where they did.

The biggest such swap over the last two decades was the title-sparking deal that sent Anthony Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2019, but let’s take a look at how the Celtics did given we know that’s why you are here.

No. 10. Kevin Garnett to Boston in 2007

Celtics get: Kevin Garnett

T-Wolves get: Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair, two ’09 1sts

(AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

“After spending the first 12 years of his NBA career with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Garnett, who had a no-trade clause, wound up going to Boston,” writes Bontemps.

“On the player side, Jefferson, who averaged 16 points and 11 rebounds in his age-22 season, came back to Minnesota in return, and he spent the next few years paired inside next to future star Kevin Love. And on the pick side, Minnesota — no stranger to the lottery — received its own pick in 2009, which projected to be a valuable one. That proved to be the case, as the Timberwolves landed the sixth overall selection.”

“But Minnesota passed on Stephen Curry … twice, first with … Ricky Rubio, and then … when the Wolves took Syracuse guard Jonny Flynn, who played a total of 163 NBA games in his career,” wrote the ESPN analyst.

No. 7. Kyrie Irving to Boston in 2017

Celtics get: Kyrie Irving

Cavs get: Jae Crowder, Isaiah Thomas, Ante Zizic, BKY ’18 1st, MIA ’20 2nd

(AP Photo/Steven Senne)

“A year removed from helping the Cavaliers win their only NBA title, Irving famously wanted a bigger role and out of Cleveland — and got his wish by being dealt to the Celtics,” related the author.

“The prize of this trade at the time was the unprotected Nets pick, which had a strong possibility of being a top-five selection. (Brooklyn went 20-62 in 2016-17.) But the Nets wound up being slightly better than expected (28-54), so it became the eighth pick, which Cleveland used to draft Collin Sexton.”

“And Thomas, dynamic in his two-plus seasons in Boston, was never the same player in Cleveland, or elsewhere after a hip injury derailed his career,” suggests Bontemps.

This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire.

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