The Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets will face one another at the Barclays Center on Saturday evening, and barring an unlikely playoff matchup, this will be the final time the two teams battle this season.

Of course, any time the Celtics and Nets play these days, we are reminded of the fateful trade during the summer of 2013 that sent Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to Brooklyn in exchange for salary filler and three first-round draft picks, all of which were unprotected.

Boston ended up choosing Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with the first two picks before sending the third one to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a trade that netted the C's Kyrie Irving, so it's fairly safe to say that the Celtics have made the most out of that deal.

Brooklyn, meanwhile, has been languishing ever since.

Sure, the Nets had the decent first year when they made it to the second round of the playoffs, but since then, they have been floundering and are just now starting to regain their bearings.

At the time, the trade was understandable from Brooklyn's point of view. The Nets had just moved into a new arena, and owner Mikhail Prokhorov was looking for a big splash. Brooklyn already had Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez on the roster, so adding experienced veterans like Garnett and Pierce was seen as a move that could have put the Nets over the top.

The problem was, while KG and Pierce were still good players, they were mere shells of the players they once were, and the Nets aging squad as a whole was unable to stay healthy.

And for the Celtics? They knew the KG-Pierce era was over after suffering a first-round exit in the 2013 postseason, so Danny Ainge had to come to grips with the fact that Boston needed to rebuild.

Here we are, six years later, and the C's are a perennial contender while the Nets are still trying to find their way.

Things aren't all bad in Brooklyn right now. The Nets aren't great by any means, but they are at least respectable, and if they can make it through this brutal stretch to end the season where they have to play Boston, the Milwaukee Bucks twice, the Toronto Raptors, the Indiana Pacers and the Miami Heat, they will actually be headed to the playoffs for the first time in four years.

Brooklyn will also have some cap space this summer, so the Nets may be able to lure a big-name free agent. It's unlikely, but not impossible.

So, slowly but surely, Brooklyn is recovering, but that does not excuse the fact that the Nets were on the wrong end of one of the most lopsided trades this league has ever seen.

Of course, Brooklyn is under new management now. San Antonio Spurs disciple Sean Marks is now at the helm, and he seems to be a breath of fresh air after the unmitigated disaster that was the Billy King era.

You would think that Marks, after his experience in San Antonio, would have a clue as to what he is doing going forward, so there does seem to be some hope for the Nets in the coming years.

But you can't help but wonder the position Brooklyn would be in at this current point in time had it not surrendered three first-rounders to acquire two players nearing retirement six years ago.

I guess the good news for the Nets is that they are playing meaningful basketball in March and April for the first time in four years, and I use the term “meaningful” generously, as Brooklyn would have actually been better off tanking the season and missing the playoffs.

Even with that said, the fact that the Nets are no longer a laughing stock and might even be able to take a game or two from a higher seed in the first round of the postseason does show that they have, in fact, climbed out of the cellar.

I mean, Brooklyn could have only gone up from where it was a few years ago, right?

And hey; the Nets actually have some exciting players, like big man Jarrett Allen, who looks like he has the potential to be a DeAndre Jordan type of player in the right offense. D'Angelo Russell may not be all that efficient, but he is entertaining to watch, and it has been cool to see Spencer Dinwiddie develop into a real threat—a Lou Williams type, if you will—off the bench.

Brooklyn will never be able to forget the summer of 2013, but it is at least reaching the stage where it may be able to forgive itself.