The trade rumors that have sent shockwaves throughout the league finally became more than rumors on Saturday night, as the Celtics agreed to trade the No. 1 overall pick to the 76ers, according to a report from David Aldridge. The 76ers, in turn, will select Washington guard Markelle Fultz first overall.

In return, Philadelphia will send something of a complicated package of two selections. The first pick going to Boston is the No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft. The second, according to Derek Bodner, will be one of either the 2018 Lakers first-round pick, or the 2019 Kings first-round pick. If the Lakers pick falls between No. 2 and No. 5, the pick will transfer to the Celtics. If it is either the No. 1 pick, or between No. 6 and 30, the pick will stay with Philadelphia, and the 76ers will instead send the 2019 Sacramento pick unprotected.

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Obviously, this is a trade of stunning magnitude. And given the future assets involved, it’s pretty tough to evaluate just hours after consummation. But let’s try to take an objective look at what just happened from each side, and whether the teams should be walking away happy.

76ers: The future is now

This one is simple for Philadelphia. After drafting its frontcourt of the future in the past three drafts, the organization has a significant need in the backcourt. And in Fultz, the 76ers are not just getting the best fit possible for the roster they have assembled, but they’re going to be able to ease the concerns Fultz has due to their current roster construction.

Fultz, as far as this evaluator is concerned, is the clear No. 1 talent in this NBA Draft. He’s an obvious fit in the modern NBA as a three-level, dominating pick-and-roll scorer who can play either on or off the ball. That works exceedingly well with Ben Simmons, the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s draft. The team seems set on trying Simmons some at point guard, and with Fultz, they have the right player to try the experiment with situationally.

Simmons can lead the break in transition and make decisions on the fly as a point guard, but when it comes time to settle down and get into the halfcourt, Fultz can lead as a maestro with the screen, consistently getting into the teeth of the defense and dishing to his teammates. He’ll space the floor with his terrific shooting ability for Joel Embiid’s post game, as well as for Simmons’ mid-post slashing game.

Defense is certainly a concern for Fultz, but he couldn’t have found a better partner than Embiid to cover up for his weaknesses. Fultz is at his best on that end as something of an instinctual gambler, a player who takes risks getting into passing lanes and then trying to utilize his recovery speed to make up for it. And realistically, that’s when he’s giving effort, because far too often at Washington he got caught napping at the point of attack.

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But with Embiid inside (and Robert Covington on the wing wreaking havoc with his active hands), Fultz will have the perfect security blanket. The 76ers had what would have been the best defense in the NBA with the Cameroonian 7-footer on the floor last year, allowing just 99.1 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com. In large part, that has to do with Embiid’s rim protection, as opponents shot just 40.8 percent at the rim against him — the best mark in the league. It’s worth noting that this all happened in a small, 31-game sample where Embiid didn’t play back-to-backs, but it seems clear he’s a high-end defender, and one who should help Fultz.

These are all complementary pieces to one another, something that seemed extremely difficult to accomplish just a year ago when the 76ers selected Simmons. The 6-10 power forward presented quite a few challenges in how to maximize his abilities, due to his lack of rim protection, floor spacing and the need to have the ball in his hands. But just a year later, it’s incredible how things have come together with players on similar timelines to one another.

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With Embiid, the Sixers seem to have the sweet-shooting, rim-protecting center needed to pair with Simmons. In Covington, the team found a versatile defensive maestro to take tougher defensive matchups (and hopefully knock down shots as long as his performance ins 2016-17 was more of a down year). And in Fultz, the team has found its point guard that can play both on and off the ball, that can knock down shots and distribute in the halfcourt.

There’s no sure thing that all of this works out. Simmons and Fultz have yet to play a game, and Embiid has only played 31. That’s not enough to know just how low the floor or how high the ceiling is for this trio yet (or if the ceiling even exists). But while this deal was consummated by Bryan Colangelo and the current 76ers front office, it has the fingerprints of the past regime all over it. Under Sam Hinkie, the organization built up a treasure trove of assets in order to get as many cracks at the superstar table as they could.

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Basically, the goal was to accumulate assets in order to make the draft idiot-proof, where they could miss out on winning the lottery, or even incorrectly evaluate high-upside players at the top of the draft and still come away with a core that could legitimately one day have an argument that it could compete for a title. This trade certainly seems like the culmination of that vision, and it happened in part because Hinkie had the foresight to get a pick swap and first-round pick when taking on a salary dump from the Kings, then evaluated that Michael Carter-Williams was worth dealing for a future Lakers first-rounder.

But it would be unfair to lay all of this success at the feet of Hinkie. Colangelo deserves credit for selecting Simmons last year, and then pulling the trigger on a deal this year that has set the team up with not just a core for the future, but also a core that fits together. And the cupboard isn’t bare into the future, either. The Sixers still have their own first-rounders, and they will have either this Lakers pick in 2018 or the Kings pick in 2019.

This is almost like The Process 2.0, a combination of the efforts of each of the past two front offices. Hinkie had the vision, and Colangelo actualized it in a way that has gone perfectly. Maybe Hinkie would have done the same, but instead let’s give both credit for putting the Sixers in a place where they now have possibly the most exciting future in the NBA five years from now. It’ll still take some breaks, but the hard part might be over.

Sixers Grade: A+

Celtics: What's the next move for Boston?

Ultimately, this trade comes down to the fact that Danny Ainge didn’t quite have the same evaluation on Fultz as the majority of the basketball world — myself included. If Ainge believed that Fultz was the star that the Sixers are gambling he is, the former Washington lead guard would be a Celtic on Thursday.

Instead, it’s clear by this deal that Ainge believes there are at least two other players in a similar tier to Fultz. He may have had Fultz at the top of his board, but not quite as far ahead. That made it worthwhile for the Celtics to pick up another potentially tremendous asset while still getting a player they consider to be on Fultz’s level.

If the Celtics end up staying at No. 3 — more on that in a minute — it seems likely the team will pick between Jayson Tatum or Josh Jackson. Sources throughout the NBA in the early portion of the draft process indicated that the Celtics were thought to have been locked in on four players: Fultz, Lonzo Ball, Jackson and Tatum.

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With Ball seeming to be a likely pick by the Lakers at No. 2 — and the fact that, per Adam Himmelsbach, the Celtics’ depth in the backcourt played a role in the trade — Jackson and Tatum are the two guys to watch. They are No. 2 and No. 3 on my board here at Sporting News.

Regardless of the pick at No. 3, this might be a risky deal for the Celtics from a value perspective due to the protections on the future pick they acquired and the cluster of bad teams currently in the NBA. Sure, this could be the No. 3 pick this year and the No. 2 pick next season if things broke right, but it could be much worse.

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Last season, the seven teams from picks No. 2 through No. 8 finished with records within six games of each other. That’s not exactly a big difference. Given the Lakers’ wealth of young talent that could take a step forward (as well as what could be an eventual pursuit of Paul George), the team could easily move into a higher tier of bad team just with internal improvement and the decline of other teams. Then, 2019 is still far enough away that it’s tough to predict exactly where the Kings will be situated.

The team certainly doesn’t look like it’ll be a playoff team by then, but it could also get into a similarly higher tier of bad team and leave the Celtics with a return of something like the 2017 No. 3 pick and the 2019 No. 8 pick for Fultz. For me, a No. 8 pick two years out is not worth the difference between Fultz and, say, Josh Jackson on my board.

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In a lot of ways, this is a certainty versus potential-for-more deal. Ainge is betting on the Lakers (and possibly the Kings) staying bad. Now he has to hope it doesn’t backfire and leave him wishing he had the bird in his hand that was Fultz.

That protection might not even matter for the Celtics, though. Rumors abounded on Saturday night that the Celtics will move this pick along to another team in another trade. Could it be for a star? Could it be for another pick in the 2017 NBA Draft? After all, the team had Dennis Smith Jr. and Lauri Markkanen in for workouts on Saturday, a pair of players more commensurate with picks in the 7 to 10 range of this year’s draft.

Ultimately, the still-moving parts of this trade for the Celtics essentially make it impossible to evaluate at this specific time. Does a move like this make them more likely to acquire Jimmy Butler or George? Does it make them a player for a star people aren’t thinking about right now? Do they just end up keeping the picks and adding it to their cavalcade of first-rounders, which now total a potential of seven in the next three drafts?

Purely from a value perspective, this is not a trade I would have consummated had I been running the Celtics. But as one NBA executive put to me on Saturday, “Ainge isn’t out here playing checkers. He’s playing chess,” and he’s seeing a board that the rest of us can’t yet see. The Celtics have enough assets to make a move on essentially any player they want. Let’s see how they utilize them before reacting to what — upon first glance — would seem to be a trade that’s riskier than necessary.

Celtics Grade: Incomplete