The trade made some semblance of sense as they already had DWill (who was not long before considered the #2 PG behind CP3), a perennial all-star in Joe Johnson, and an all-star center in Lopez.
They didn’t bring in Pierce and KG to carry a team, they brought them in to put them into contention.
And I think had they been healthy, they could have been good. I don’t fault the vision, even if Ainge fleeced him knowing he could. I think the biggest mistake was letting Kidd run that group.
Williams/Johnson/Pierce/Garnett/Lopez is a great starting five, even with KG running on fumes and Pierce clearly past his prime. The bench had guys like Terry, Livingston, Kirilenko, Teletovic, and Blatche, not exactly the thinnest bench I’ve seen.
We all know how it worked out, but at the time, it wasn’t a terrible idea for a franchise with a new arena in a new city. They made headlines (cover of SI NBA preview), they went for it. I remember being here when it went down and it being bittersweet for us, knowing PP/KG would get one final crack at a championship while also hopefully kickstarting our rebuild. NOBODY envisioned we would eventually get a #3, #1, and Kyrie Irving out of it.
Thank goodness Dwight is such a bonehead and backed out of it otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten those picks. The Gerald Wallace deal needed better draft protection in hindsight, but keep in mind Wallace was just previously traded a year before by Charlotte for TWO firsts!