Danny Ainge has made a living during his time in charge of the Boston Celtics out of piling up first-round picks and doing bold moves and trades. That’s how he landed Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brown, two-thirds of the Celtics’ core.
That’s why you’d assume that he’d take any offer that includes a solid big man and a first-round pick for a guy that wants to leave his team. Yet, that wasn’t the case when the Indiana Pacers reached out to him.
According to J. Michael of The Indianapolis Star, the Pacers picked up the phone to offer Myles Turner and a first-rounder to complete a sign-and-trade for Gordon Hayward, but Ainge and the Celtics declined their offer.
Boston Celtics Turned Down Myles Turner And A Pick For Gordon Hayward
This doesn’t make any sense if you consider the fact that it’s been said over and over that all the Celtics need to get over the hump and compete for an NBA Championship is adding a talented big man, and Turner is one of the best rim-protectors in the league and also has a versatile offensive repertoire.
That’s why ESPN’s Zach Lowe concluded that they simply didn’t want Myles Turner because there wasn’t a logical reason to turn down this kind of deal, especially for a guy that wanted to leave anyways:
“Talking to people and reading the tea leaves as best I could, it really comes down to the Celtics didn’t want Myles Turner. I did hear from some teams around the league that the Celtics have done some preliminary research on what Myles Turner’s trade value would have been to them had they acquired him either in this deal or in a separate deal, and obviously didn’t like what they saw,” Lowe said.
At the end of the day, Hayward ended up leaving the team for free. He opted out of the last year of his contract and signed a massive 4-year, $120 million deal with the Charlotte Hornets, leaving Ainge and the Celtics pretty much empty-handed.
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