Payton Pritchard Fantasy Basketball Stock Watch: Is A Breakout Coming With Jaylen Brown Out In Boston?

The trade the Boston Celtics made yesterday, trading Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and draft picks, was head-scratching to say the least, especially from a short-term perspective. A team with a winning culture, just two seasons removed from winning a championship, who had been without their top star and may have been the favorites to enter next season to win the Eastern Conference next season, trading their 29-year-old superstar for a washed-up 36-year-old and future assets doesn't make a ton of sense. Especially with Brown coming off a season in which he carried the team to the two seed in the East, largely without Jayson Tatum, and scored 28.7 points per game with 6.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game.

While the Celtics could be plotting to make another move to make this make sense, even though they still should have gotten more for Brown, many Brad Stevens apologists around Boston will give you a very different answer. They'll tell you that Brown's replacement was there the whole time, and the team could be even better without Brown. That replacement is Payton Pritchard. We will take a look if Pritchard can step up as the second superstar in Boston, and if he can be a breakout fantasy superstar next season.

The Celtics are banking on Payton Pritchard making a Jalen Brunson-type leap, per @tomhaberstroh

“The Celtics trading [Jaylen] Brown is a bet that [Payton] Pritchard is their in-house version of New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, a diminutive player who didn’t fully show his… pic.twitter.com/zEJHqyUn7P
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) July 2, 2026

Fantasy Stock Watch

G Payton Pritchard, Boston Celtics

There is no doubt that Pritchard will see an opportunity to step up next season. Brown is a ball-dominant player, while Paul George is not. At this age, George has become more of a jump shooter who is injured all the time anyway. He's played more than 56 games just once in the past seven seasons. Over the past two seasons, he has played just 41 and 37 games while averaging 16.2 and 17.3 points per game. We don't view him as a true factor who will take away from anyone in the Celtics' starting lineup.

However, assuming that Pritchard will make a huge jump without Brown and blossom into a fantasy superstar could be a bit of a stretch. It's not like Pritchard is some young upstart kid looking for his big break. He'll be turning 29 this season and is coming off a career-high 17 points per game. He also averaged a career-high 3.9 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game, while playing 32.4 minutes. To put into perspective the tweet above, the Dallas Mavericks traded Jalen Brunson when he was 25 years old.

A slight bump is probably, but him even averaging 22.2 points per game, which is the lowest Brown has averaged in the past six seasons, seems like a long shot. It's fair to be higher on Pritchard than you were two days ago, but don't overadjust or overpay for him.

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