Whenever an NBA team like the Boston Celtics makes a trade, it is banking on whatever coming back being more of the thing a ball club needs than what they are sending out — even if — in some cases — a team is trying to accumulate draft capital or young talent in a rebuild. The same can be said for players who aren’t re-signed in favor of using a roster spot elsewhere.
So there may be times a team gets worse by design, but that doesn’t stop fans and analysts from dunking on a franchise if a player they dealt away starts playing well later. To be fair, sometimes it’s annoyingly deserved (cough cough Desmond Bane cough), but it can also be a fun exercise to look back on what might have been.
