This Blog was not a big fan of the shake-it-up trade that Danny Ainge made last month simply because it didn't look altogether like a move that was meant to improve the 2010-2011 Boston Celtics, who were, at the time, doing pretty well. Was Kendrick Perkins going to be worth the asking price he was going to demand after the season was over? No, especially not if the Celtics kept going and won the thing again. This is true. It is also vastly beside the point.

What the trade did was disrupt the equilibrium of the current team to no really good purpose. It was a skunk-in-a-garden-party move. They know it. I suspect the coach knows it and, after last night's muddling against the Nets, the fans know it all too well. The trade, whatever it may do for the team in the future, crippled the team's ability to win a playoff series against another elite NBA team. At the moment, it seems to have crippled the team's ability to play to its potential even against the league mediocrities.

Right now, This Blog can't see itself making the Celtics a favorite in any series against Los Angeles, San Antonio, or (yes) Miami. It can see them at life-and-death with both Orlando and Chicago. This Blog envies people who can look forward, and see the trade has having established a juggernaut in the 2013 playoffs. But this team is far from what people saw coming in December.