Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

Arn Tellem is still convinced the Detroit Pistons had a chance to land free agent big man Al Horford.

Once Horford’s long-time agent, Tellem was a main reason the Pistons were one of the teams granted an audience with Horford earlier this month in Atlanta.

[…] “It hurt, but in the end, when I talked to Al and Jason about it, I was happy for them,” Tellem told the Free Press on Friday. “You have to just be able to accept and move on and try to take the personal part out of it.

“You have to put yourself in the other’s shoes and Al made the best decision under the circumstances for himself.”

Detroit Free Press

Al Horford would have made any team better, but Detroit was an interesting option for him. Putting him on a frontcourt with Andre Drummond and Tobias Harris could have been intriguing to Horford. Reggie Jackson and Isaiah Thomas had comparable seasons. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope isn’t Avery Bradley, but he did get some All-Defense votes.

Basically, Detroit’s got some decent players too, and they’re definitely getting better. But ultimately Boston’s upswing is moving faster, and they’re in a much better position to improve more rapidly than Detroit. Boston has the assets available to swing a trade, the cap space to add another huge star next season (Detroit is committed to $91 million guaranteed for the 2017-18 season while Boston only has $55 in guaranteed money*), and the draft picks to add good young talent that way too. They’ve also got Brad Stevens… which needs no further explanation.

It was nice of Horford to give his former agent a chance to pitch him and I think Detroit can be a decent team this year. But Detroit will have a tough time getting much further in free agency. They could have added Horford instead of making some of their other moves this year, but then that would have left them with few options to get much better beyond that. Detroit plus Horford won’t get past Cleveland. Boston plus Horford won’t either… but Boston plus Horford plus the next move they can pull off and Detroit can’t… well, that might do it.

*Quick note about the cap next year: There is about $10.5 million in team options for Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, James Young, and RJ Hunter (should the latter 2 survive camp). Kelly Olynyk is also a restricted free agent, and there is more than $11 million in non-guaranteed money tied up in Tyler Zeller, Demetrius Jackson, Jordan Mickey, and Ben Bentil. So the $55 million in guaranteed money shows financial flexibility, but the Celtics also have a lot of decisions to make next summer.

Page 2: Isaiah Thomas shoved a guy in China

Isaiah was recently out in China for a promotional tour. That involved this little pickup game that seemed pretty heated.

Go to the 2:00 for the pushing, which starts with an overly aggressive Chinese street baller checking Thomas, followed by a push off by IT, then the ball toss into the guy’s chest, some shoving, and a stare-down.

Really, this is a whole lot of nothing since it ended pretty quickly, but I’m not really a fan of Thomas being out there playing that hard in that situation. I know we’re firmly into Pro-Am and promotional tour season, but I just hate the idea of overzealous guys trying to prove something against NBA stars and creating dangerous situations.

And Finally…

It was just Jae Crowder day!!

It’s nice to see guys go home and do good for their communities. Crowder donated school supplies to kids in his home town for the second year in a row.

He got the key to the city too… and that’s inspired me to give Crowder the key to my city… this website.

Jae,

By the power vested in me as co-creator of RedsArmy.com, I present to you the password to the site for you to write your own pieces about yourself.

User name: Jaesus99
Password: IheartChuckMcKenney (case sensitive)

Congratulations, Jae!

The rest of the links:

Globe: Sunday basketball notes: The Raptors’ focus this offseason? Take care of their own

CSNNE: Who’ll make the roster?