Danny Ainge: Celtics Talked About Trading Tatum, Brown Draft Picks for Jimmy Butler

The Boston Celtics have one of the best young duos in the league in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, but there was once a chance that neither of them landed with the team.

Former Celtics president Danny Ainge, who is now an executive with the Utah Jazz, said on the Knuckleheads podcast that he held discussions with the Chicago Bulls about acquiring Jimmy Butler, but it would've cost the team the first-round picks used to select Tatum and Brown.

"Some of the best trades I ever made were the ones I wasn't able to make. Like, I was trying to get Jimmy Butler from Chicago when I was in Boston, but they wanted a lot," Ainge explained. "So we didn't do it, because it ended up it would've been Jaylen and Jayson, both those draft picks that we got Jaylen and Jayson with."

Butler, who is now with the Miami Heat, is one of the best two-way players in the league. The 33-year-old led the Heat to a second NBA Finals appearance in the last three years this past season, defeating the Celtics in seven games along the way. Miami fell to the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals.

It's clear that Butler, Brown and Tatum were all destined for productive careers regardless of whether Ainge was successful in completing that trade or not.