I Hate the Jaylen Brown Trade

Boy do I hate the Jaylen Brown trade! (How’s that for a hot take.) I was on the fence about training him for Giannis, but ultimately decided I would take the plunge for an MVP-caliber player. Didn’t happen, he took his many talents to South Beach. Apparently in their pursuit of the Greek Freak, the Celtics burned the ships with Brown, as there was no way to bring him back to the Celtics.

The back up options after we couldn’t give him for the Greek, that we saw last week were all, shall we say, unpalatable. There was a pupu platter on the table from Portland of guys I’d never heard of it, but with draft picks that would likely be very high. Two things I know about Portland: 1. They’re not very good 2. Their owner doesn’t want to buy playoff t-shirts. Recipe for the Celtics to steal a top pick perhaps!

Another option that was floating out there was Denver, where in the Celtics would get former Finals hero Jamal Murray. Don’t know that I love the fit, but at least you’d be getting a good player in return plus some more. Maybe even opening up the lines of communication to eventually bring Nikola Jokic to Boston? (Wishful, but we’re grasping.)

So what happens? The Celtics trade Jaylen Brown, 24-months removed from being the MVP of the NBA Finals, to arguably your biggest rival in the East. (Knicks are now 1a, Philly 1b) In return you get the corpse of Paul George and 4 draft picks: 2 first rounders and 2 second round picks. Seems like a lot, but Paul George is 36-years old and in his two years in Philadelphia never played in more than half of their games. Right now he would be the 5^th best player on a championship team for maybe one more season, MAX.

But you say to yourself, “but they got two first round picks.” Super! With Jaylen Brown now to go along with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecomb, I have a feeling that those two first rounders aren’t going to be lottery picks and I’m sorry, but late first round picks in the NBA Draft don’t do much for me.

In terms of recent horrendous trades on the Boston sports landscape, this ranks somewhere between Rafael Devers to San Francisco and Mookie Betts to the Dodgers. Sadly, I think this is closer to Betts to the Dodgers, though Brown hasn’t won an MVP, he did lead this franchise to a championship. (Still galls me that we got Verdugo and a back up catcher for Mookie Betts.) What takes the Brown trade even up a notch is that the Celtics traded him not only in the division, not only to a franchise that has been your rival for 60+ years, but you just made one of your main competitors MUCH better not only in talent but financially as well. You took the George contract off their hands and replaced it with Jaylen Brown.

Now you’ve put Jayson Tatum and Derrick White on an island. We got to see what the Celtics looked like last year without Tatum, now we get to see what Tatum looks like without Brown. Mitchell Robinson is an interesting piece, also taking from the NBA champions isn’t a bad move. You have Prichard, Hugo Gonzalez and Baylor Scheierman. You brought back Queta. You’re in the game, but boy does this team look different from the 2024 champs.

Trading Porzingus and Jrue Holliday made sense, it hurt but it made sense. This just hurts and I’m not sure it makes a damn bit of sense. Not now anyway. To have hope, you have to believe that this sets them up to do something next year or the year after; some big splash like trading for Jokic or (dare we dream) signing a player like Cooper Flagg. Unfortunately in the mean time, these next couple of years feel like we’re going to be floating on the illusion of respectability, without fully being a title contender. The Paul George era will be forgettable, but his name in Boston will never be forgotten. Paul George is the newest in the long line of Stan Papi, Danny Cater, Alex Verdugo and Kyle Harrison. Not a starting 5 you want to be on.