Chris Mannix: The Celtics Need Everything to Break Right for the Jaylen Brown Trade to Work

Brad Stevens tried to lay out Boston’s thinking, but there are still lingering questions as to why this deal and why now.

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BOSTON — If you were looking for the why on the Jaylen Brown trade—as in why the Celtics would trade a top 10-ish player for a faded ex-All-Star and a couple of first-round picks—you left Monday’s news conference with some answers. 

“Optionality,” said Brad Stevens, Boston’s president of basketball operations. 

Stevens added, “I think that we did the deal because Paul George is a good player and we got draft assets.”

If you were looking for reasons to agree with them … maybe not. 

Let’s start with the why, which Stevens attempted to spell out. The path to winning, Stevens said, “looked a little bit more challenging with 70% of our cap and such a high percent of our usage tied into two players.” Of course, Stevens was willing to tie up that cap with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s contract and George will spend the next two seasons making roughly the same salary Brown will. 

The picks look nice on paper. A 2028 first-rounder that likely will convey from the Clippers? Could be interesting. The 2031 unprotected first from the 76ers? Who knows where Philly will be in five years. “Potential big swings at the apple,” Stevens said. Fine. But unless those picks are packaged for another player, neither figures to help a 28-year-old Jayson Tatum win a championship. 

Here’s what didn’t have anything to do with it, per Stevens. Tatum, for one. Tatum had no input on the decision, Stevens said, part of a long-standing policy he has to not solicit player opinions. Analytics for another. Brown’s analytic profile has taken a beating in recent days. That profile, Stevens insisted, was a “small part” of why he executed the trade. 

“It was a really hard call,” Stevens said. “I’m not saying it was the right call. We wanted to stay good and we wanted to add more optionality.”

Money didn’t have anything to do with it either, claimed Bill Chisholm. The Celtics’ lead owner flanked Stevens during his news conference and insisted that despite two offseasons of cost-cutting, the front office had a blank check from him to make the team better. 

“If we see something we want, Brad’s got the green light to do that,” said Chisholm. “So yeah, I know people feel like, ‘Oh, there must be a smoking gun somewhere around the money.’ That’s just not what this is about. And I can say it and I’ll keep saying it, but I’ll also prove it to you. When we have the opportunity, we’re going to do that. And we’ve given ourselves the flexibility to do it now.”

Squint, and you can kinda see it. Paying two players $115 million—Tatum and Brown’s combined salaries—next season is challenging. With Tatum sidelined, Brown’s usage rate spiked, and there may have been no going back. Package the picks, use George’s soon-to-be expiring contract (he has a player option for 2027–28) and you might be able to do something. 

Still, for this to pan out everything has to break right. Stevens praised George, pointing to his play in the first round of the postseason against Boston as proof there is more left in the tank. But George is 36 and has battled knee injuries. He has played 78 games the last two seasons. He played well against the Celtics, but he had fresh legs after serving a 25-game suspension for testing positive for a banned substance. It’s wishful thinking to believe he can come close to reclaiming anything close to All-Star form. 

And really—this was the best Boston could do? It’s a question executives across the NBA have been asking. And did they need to do it now? There’s another. There was no market for George. No flexibility in Philadelphia to cut another deal with its picks. From the outside, it appeared the Celtics were in a hurry to push Brown out the door. 

“I don’t know that you can perfectly predict the timing of these things,” said Stevens. “Obviously this was not a secret. So people had plenty of information or at least had a reason to make offers, make a run, whatever the case may be. The one thing that I will say is we tried our very best to look and again … we tried to really assess the value of what we thought a pick was worth or at least best predict it.”

In the aftermath of the trade, Brown said he “wasn’t thrilled” with the respect he was shown by the Celtics. Stevens revealed that he sat down with Brown in early June, to discuss his future in Boston, or elsewhere. He said Brown’s agent, Jason Glushon, was “well aware of even teams that had the most cursory of interest.” Trades get complicated in the end stage, Stevens said, but they did what they could to keep Brown in the loop. 

“That’s why you try to be upfront before,” said Stevens. “I can’t control what other people might think, but I do think we’ve put in a lot of sweat equity and I hope that Jaylen felt like we always treated him great when he was here throughout the whole 10 years.” 

Certainly, Stevens has earned some latitude. He’s the reigning Executive of the Year who is two years removed from delivering a championship. But this deal is attached to him. He owns it. If Brown leads the Sixers to the NBA Finals next season. If George continues to break down. If the picks don’t turn out quite as good as the Celtics hope. If Tatum spends the next few years spinning his wheels on a middling contender. 

“What we ultimately decided could be right or wrong,” said Stevens. “It’s obviously unpopular and most people think it’ll be wrong. We assessed everything. We spent a lot of time on it. We spent a lot of time on the game. We spent a lot of time on our team. We spent a lot of time on what this thing might look like down the road. Spent a lot of time on an alternative and ultimately this is where we landed.”