Insider Reveals That Celtics May Be Forced to Trade Jaylen Brown
· Yahoo Sports
Aside from the incessant Giannis Antetokounmpo trade chatter, the next most frequently heard name these days on the NBA rumor mill is Jaylen Brown. The Boston Celtcis’ 2024 NBA Finals MVP has been included in a number of proposed deals posited around the basketball world. But they’ve all been with the intention of landing Antetokounmpo in Boston to replace him.
But after hearing all this, how content is Brown going to be going back to Beantown?
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According to Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo Sports, not very.
He says that the Celtics might be forced now to trade Brown this summer, one way or the other.
I can’t imagine (Brown would) be too happy going back to Boston if they don’t end up landing Giannis Antetokounmpo. So I’d imagine that (Celtics president of basketball operations) Brad Stevens has at least a Plan B or a Plan C here to flip Jaylen Brown somewhere else for parts.
In fact, O’Connor even suggests that the Celts might be better off not landing Giannis, anyway, and still trading Brown. Both of them will be earning $57-$58M next season, while Boston’s main man, Jayson Tatum, is at $58M as well.
“Look, the fact is it’s hard to win with two players making $60-plus million. That’s true with Giannis plus Tatum, it’s true with Brown plus Tatum,” O’Connor said.
He goes on to add that the last two NBA champions, the freshly minted New York Knicks and last year’s Oklahoma City Thunder, both were based on one superstar surrounded by very good and very deep rosters.
“We’ve seen the formula… With a new collective bargaining agreement, perhaps (this) might be the way forward.”
Jaylen Brown on the move out of Boston?
So who could come calling on Brown? O’Connor lists a number of possibilities, mainly teams that have been suggested as third-party conduits to getting a Giannis trade done. Those would include the Atlanta Hawks, Portland Trail Blazers, and Los Angeles Clippers.
Would any of those three circle back to try to get a deal done directly with the Celtics for Brown?
O’Connor adds a fourth possibility:
“(A) New Orleans package with Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, and whatever other pieces, I think, is pretty intriguing with what they could do in (Joe) Mazzulla’s system alongside Jayson Tatum. I think those are winning players that have just been stuck on a losing team.”
The Celtics are just two years removed from being NBA champions. They already dealt away key pieces last summer in Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday while watching Al Horford leave in free agency. It’s possible that by the end of this summer’s trading frenzy, that title-winning team will be completely unrecognizable, aside from Tatum.
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