NEW YORK — The NBA, by nature of the CBA and career timelines, is cyclical. One moment a team is in the conference finals, the next it’s toiling through a rebuild. Just ask the Thunder. And the Rockets.
Very rarely does a trade bring heavy repercussions a decade later. But there weren’t many moves like the Boston-Nets swap on June 28, 2013. It became THE cautionary tale for teams eager to sacrifice draft assets for a shot at a title, setting off a five-year trend of reluctance to part with unprotected picks. It took Toronto’s deal for Kawhi Leonard in 2018 to reset that market — and now we’re seeing another reverse following that outrageously priced deal for Rudy Gobert.
On the 10-year anniversary of the Nets-Celtics trade, we’ll take a look at the major characters involved, what happened to them, and how the negotiations shaped two franchises:
