SALT LAKE CITY — To fairly judge the Celtics’ execution at the trade deadline, we must first accept the unassailable fact that the club as presently constructed cannot compete for an NBA championship. 

That is not to say this isn’t a team of talented players with very good attitudes that is very entertaining and can hang with some of the best in the league on given regular-season nights.  But not even the most optimistic Greenheart believes this roster is ready to play in June. 

Danny Ainge clearly doesn’t.  And that is healthy.  It’s why he spent the last several days trying to get the kind of magnetic player needed to lift the Celtics from the NBA’s middle earth.  While a league source has indicated the late target Ainge has referred to in radio interviews was Philadelphia’s Jahlil Okafor, Ainge has turned silent on the matter. 

In any case, we do know the deal was dead on Wednesday and that the other club pulled the plug.  The locals left the porch light on, but nothing returned to life. 

So the C’s move on.  Nothing has changed with their plan.  They recognize the destination and their proximity from it. 

Unlike some places where there is a struggle to keep the operation viable and a rebuilding downturn clears out the building, the Celts have the luxury of knowing their fan base will stay the course, even more so as long as the club is moving toward the only goal that matters for the franchise — winning a championship. 

Those who clamored for Ainge to, because he has so many assets, overspend for an Al Horford or even Kevin Love, miss the point.  The potential of short-term gratification from Horford and the cost of Love — at this time — make them too risky in relation to the long-term goal.  And by using up key assets, it can fate you to a longer stretch in the good-but-not-good-enough folder. 

Each of those players could be revisited in the offseason when what the Celts have in the Brooklyn pick is better defined and what is expected to be a crazy market, with the salary cap jump, begins to come into focus. 

Offering the Nets’ No.  1 for either of those two would have been lunacy.  You don’t give up a shot, however dimmed by the lottery odds, at a franchise player for a guy who will be a free agent this summer or one with great skills but health questions.  But as we’ve noted here this week, the Brooklyn choice was available for a franchise player who might happen to be playing for another franchise right now — and it will be the same before the draft. 

Certainly nothing is a sure thing in the NBA, where every player is just one relationship with a Kardashian away from trouble.  And draftees come with an additional layer of incertitude.  But now that Thursday has passed, you cannot make an educated call until the ping-pong balls have their say. 

And any deal that was available this week should not be any worse after the season.  In fact, there should be much more available then.  No club wants to give up a player of substance and be seen as throwing in the towel while the season is still on, and all of them have to be thinking they, too, could turn things around with more of that NBA TV revenue in their coffers. 

But when some teams choose to rebuild and others don’t get what they want, the Celtics will be there with more to offer. 

As for this week, the only way to define whether the Celts screwed up is to know what they could have had.  They were rebuffed on the mystery deal, and from everything we heard from team sources around the league, at no time did Ainge turn down an offer of Kevin Durant for Tyler Zeller, David Lee and a piece of the original parquet floor.  Look, all you have to do is look at the list of deadline transactions to know there weren’t any major stars on the menu. 

Among the teams being lauded for having a successful deadline are Miami and Oklahoma City, which shed players and put themselves in better financial position. 

The Celtics are already there. 

As a measure of how well positioned they are in working their salary structure, it’s instructive to note that Avery Bradley, Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder combined to make less than the top maximum contract this year.  And they will be well under that number next season when their aggregate rises by just a few hundred thousand mainly due to Thomas’ incrementally decreasing contract and the fact the Celts worked a one-year dip of a little more than a half million into Crowder’s deal. 

When Bradley agreed to his four-year, $32 million deal in the summer of 2014, there were cries that Ainge had lost his mind, that no way the Bradley was worth that kind of money. 

We cautioned at the time that, in addition to the fact Bradley’s defensive value and even his shooting weren’t being given enough credit by fans, there was also the coming change in league revenues that would make his contract seem modest before its end. 

As of now, Bradley’s $8,269,663 is the highest guaranteed commitment on the Celtics’ books. 

This week, from all indications, the best the Celtics could do was to avoid hurting their position.  And because they could not do it alone, helping their cause to any meaningful degree was simply not an option.