LAS VEGAS — Bryan Colangelo and Danny Ainge are longtime friends, having worked together in Phoenix and been around the league for more than 30 years. They might like to needle each other a bit at times — you know, when they’re not busy executing the biggest trade of the 2017 draft — but the Philadelphia 76ers president of hoop operations offered a tip of the cap to his Celtics counterpart’s acquisition of free agent Gordon Hayward.

“I think it was a great move, a brilliant transaction,” Colangelo said. “But more importantly, it was really a great execution of steps leading up to the opportunity.

“You know, you put yourself in a position to make a deal like that with careful planning and great execution, and they could not have put themselves in a better situation, and here they are.”

Philly and the Celtics shook up the NBA world when Ainge sent the No. 1 overall pick to the 76ers for the third pick and a future first-rounder from either the Lakers or Sacramento.

Colangelo jokingly was asked if it was tough playing poker with someone he knew so well.

“I don’t think it makes it any more difficult than dealing with anyone else in the business,” he said. “For one, he’s got a really good partner and buffer in Mike Zarren, so a lot of my dialogue was actually with Mike. We talked about a lot of things over the years, both Danny and I and then Mike and I. It’s really no different than any other team. You have relationships and you’ve got bonds.

“The bottom line is it’s very difficult to make a deal in this league. It’s particularly difficult to make a deal that makes sense for both sides. Some teams try to get a little bit more of an edge, some teams try to be fair, and some teams are just willing to do something to create an opportunity for yet another transaction.

“But in this case it was a good blend of agendas. Like, we were going one way, and they were going another way, and it made sense for them, and it made sense for us in this particular case.”

The 76ers wanted a clear shot at Markelle Fultz, who was projected as the top pick in this draft even before the draft lottery matched specific teams to the picks. Colangelo was more than happy with what he saw from Fultz in the Utah summer league, just as the Celts were comfortable with their decision to move back and take Jayson Tatum at No. 3 after the Lakers did as expected and took Lonzo Ball.

Colangelo thought the move up was important for the Sixers.

“Sitting at 3, we had an idea of what would happen,” he said. “But sitting at 1, you absolutely know what happens. So that’s two years in a row we had a chance to control our own destiny (Ben Simmons in 2016).

“We’ve got to be looking at this deal and say, ‘We’re betting on the kid that we think is the right one for us and the right fit for us, and hopefully in the long run, the best player out of the draft. However, given the nature of the talent, the depth of the talent in this particular draft . . . I’ve been saying for months that the top 10 picks have a good six or seven All-Stars in it, and arguably one or two guys that could become franchise-type players. So it could really be any one of them that emerges.

“It comes down to circumstances,” Colangelo added. “It comes down to opportunity. It comes down to health and a little bit of luck in the process. But the draft is an inexact science, and this is obviously something that gets an immediate reaction and an immediate grade, but the reality is that it takes years for this stuff to sort itself out.”

As for competing against his friend, Colangelo smiled and said, “I’m really not concerned about Danny and what’s going on there other than we’re targeting them as someone that we need to chase because we’re behind them right now in our development.”

Stevens no stranger to recruiting

A coach doesn’t entirely leave recruiting behind when he moves from college to the NBA. Brad Stevens found that out in a big way during last summer’s pursuit of Kevin Durant and again as he repeated a move from his Butler days and helped get Gordon Hayward onto his team for a second time.

The Celtics coach said before this latest free agent chase that enjoyed being back in the recruiting game, maybe in part because it’s not the full-time job it is in college.

Interestingly, Stevens said the biggest recruit he’d missed out on before Durant was Tyler Zeller’s brother Cody.

“You know, I almost went to Butler just for coach Stevens, but I thought that Indiana was a better fit for me at the time,” Cody said.

“He recruited my older brothers, Tyler and Luke. I was in fourth grade when he started recruiting Luke. They started recruiting him when he was a sophomore. I remember going to Butler games with Luke during the time they were trying to get him, so I’ve ended up having a long relationship with coach Stevens.

“I have a lot of respect for coach Stevens. It’s fun to see that both of us have had success. It’s cool.”

Stevens was 0-for-Zeller. Tyler went to North Carolina, and Luke went to Notre Dame before playing 16 games with Phoenix in 2012-13 and doing time overseas and what then was called the Development League.

“I like that part,” Stevens said of recruiting. “More so to the high school thing, it’s really fun because you get a chance to know families. Like I got a chance to know the Zeller family exceptionally well before ever recruiting Cody because we recruited Luke really hard and didn’t get him.

“We actually got a walk-on (Drew Striker) from his high school that ended up being a scholarship player and is a doctor down at Emory now (and) is a phenomenal guy that ended up having a great career for Butler because we went and watched Luke all the time. Drew was a heck of a player for us.”

As for Tyler, who played three seasons for Stevens with the C’s before being waived last week, there wasn’t much of a chance for a Butler connection.

“Tyler we didn’t hardly recruit at all because I was an assistant when he was really blossoming, and when I got the head job, I made one call to him,” Stevens said. “I think that was the spring of his junior year, and I said, ‘Tyler, I know you want to be an engineer. You can do that here. I’m just telling you, you can do that here. If you don’t have an interest, I’m not going to waste any time on you, but if you do, let me know.’

“He goes, ‘Good, I’ll let you know.’ And I never heard from him again until we started recruiting Cody.”