Things have not been easy for the Boston Celtics over the past year and a half, as they’ve endured quite a bit of hardship ranging from injury woes all the way to overall disappointing production when on the hardwood.
Frankly, one of the only things getting fans through these dark times has been the fact that, despite their lowly turnouts, the franchise still has two of the best young stars in the association in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown locked up under contract for the next several years to come, thus providing hope that brighter days must be ahead.
That said, according to recent rumblings, there could be some trouble looming out on the horizon for this aforementioned duo, as Steve Bulpett of Heavy.com has stated that sources have informed him of a potential ‘divorce’ between Brown and the shamrocks should the team not turn their lackluster season around.
Fortunately, Boston has actually managed to go on somewhat of a hot streak of late, winning 10 of their 16 games since the calendar year flipped to 2022, so, should these rumors be true, at least for the time being it looks as though these two parties are trending in the right direction.
That said, there are still plenty of games remaining on the season — games that could ultimately go on to save the marriage between Brown and the C’s or simply split them apart.
While we at HH would love nothing more than to see the Celtics go on to find their groove and, in turn, once again vie for a deep playoff run, should things get worse in Eastern Massachusetts between the franchise and their star wing, and Brad Stevens and co. comply with JB’s rumored desires to move on by shopping him, it is with great confidence that we believe teams would be flooding the phone lines in an effort to discuss potential trade packages in an effort to acquire him.
Truth be told, it’s quite reasonable to believe that, should Brown be placed on the trade block, all 29 other teams in the NBA will give the Boston Celtics a ring to see what it would take to pry him away from the organization and, of these other ball clubs, we believe 4, in specific, will be the ones dialing non-stop to pull out all the stops in hopes of getting a deal done:
Boston Celtics trade partner No. 1) Atlanta Hawks
Like the Boston Celtics, the Atlanta Hawks have proven to be one of the more disappointing teams in the league thus far into the 2021-22 campaign.
After having a tremendous postseason run the year prior that ultimately saw them reach the Eastern Conference Finals, Atlanta has unfortunately followed their stellar expedition up by putting together a sub-.500 record of 24-26 through 50 games played.
When you have a budding superstar like point guard, Trae Young, in tow, such a turnout is absolutely unacceptable and, because of this, it is reported that Hawks General Manager, Travis Schlenk, will be rather active this trade season in an effort to try and surround their franchise cornerstone with better fitting running mates and many are under the impression that a guy like Brown could be exactly what they’re looking for.
A two-way stud who seems to be on pace to be selected to his second straight All-Star game, having a wing of this magnitude joining forces with a guy like Young would easily make for a truly menacing one-two punch (something they were hoping they would get when they drafted Cam Reddish back in 2019), and the concept of being able to deal for Brown while, at the same time, keeping John Collins (would make such a trade even worse for Boston, but I digress) would then create an incredibly talented Big-3 that would be an absolute nightmare for opposing defenses to go up against.
Doing everything you can in order to keep your star player happy should always be a top priority for a front office, and, in their minds, trading for someone of Jaylen Brown’s ilk could be the kind of move that would do exactly that.