Dear Pelicans: The Celtics are going to burn you now that you waited to trade Anthony Davis

The Pelicans opted not to trade Anthony Davis by Thursday’s 3 p.m. ET NBA trade deadline. Instead, after seeking promises from the Boston Celtics that they will make an enormous offer featuring specific players this summer, New Orleans decided to stand pat with Davis on the team.

Boston can’t legally trade for Davis until they extend Kyrie Irving’s contract. The Celtics, to their credit, have demurred on specifics, according to Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe.

Dearest Pelicans, you sweet fools: do not under any circumstance trust the Celtics to do what is best for the Pelicans in this matter, because what is best for the Pelicans is diametrically opposed to what is best for the Celtics.

Himmelsbach reports that Celtics jefe Danny Ainge is not promising, for instance, that the they will definitely make Jayson Tatum available in Davis talks on July 1. Even if Ainge did promise that, that promise is worth absolutely nothing. A promise of future considerations from any NBA decision-maker would be worthless. From Ainge, a notoriously ruthless and unemotional chief, it’s worth even less. Frankly, if Ainge promised Tatum and Jaylen Brown and the Memphis pick if only the Pelicans will wait until July to trade Davis, New Orleans should have then immediately traded Davis somewhere else to avoid getting caught in Ainge’s web of pain.

This situation is another complication in what has become a serious question for the Pelicans: Is there a benefit to waiting it out?

The answer to that is unclear.

In some ways, it obviously behooved the Pelicans to wait. The Celtics can’t honestly negotiate right now (unless Kyrie Irving is on the block) due to arcane league rules. Having the Celtics in the mix in a real way would benefit New Orleans. Similarly, knowing how the NBA draft lottery shakes out is a real boon to the Pelicans’ plans. Trading for actual draft slots or prospects provides a lot more certainty than trading for what are essentially lotto tickets.

In other ways, haste might have been rewarded. Reports have swirled that Davis has actually been cleared to play and wants to play, but New Orleans has held him out. Now that the deadline has passed without a deal, this could get extremely messy. The Pelicans would have reason to bench Davis — protect him from injury and improve their own draft standing — but Davis would have reason to want to play (he is, after all, a basketball player). We know that Davis’ representation, Klutch Sports, is aggressive behind the scenes and could escalate what might become public drama.

We have indications that the Pelicans can play dirty, too. Not only is a top-line ESPN reporter suggesting that the Pelicans intentionally sabotaged the Lakers by pretending to engage with L.A. and leaking everything (a scandalous accusation), but New Orleans traded for another Klutch client, Markieff Morris, for little apparent reason late Wednesday.

The chicanery is barely being hidden. This could get really ugly. In some ways, it already is. In that sense, and because a Laker in hand is worth two Celtics in the bush, getting a deal done now may have been a better choice for New Orleans.

This is a viper pit for the Pelicans. In every corner lurks danger. That’s the cost of having superstars in the NBA. For six-and-a-half years, New Orleans got to have one of the best players on the planet just because they were truly awful at the exact right time. The Pelicans did very little with those six-and-a-half years, but they should be thankful all the same.

That’s why wrapping up this era ASAP and moving on to the next one — for the sake of fans and the players left behind — might have been the better route. Even if it would have given Davis, the Lakers, and Klutch what they want.

Alas, they didn’t budge. Let’s get ready to do this again in June.