Boston Celtics player No. 2) Jaylen Brown
If the casuals learned anything from the C’s remarkable run this year, it’s that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown CAN compliment each other and, not only that, but excel alongside one another whilst also making the team as a whole better.
After years of constant questions pushed out by the media over whether or not the young pair has the ability to coexist alongside one another, the Jays seemingly managed to put all these concerns to rest as they guided the Celtics to, not only one of the greatest midseason turnarounds in league history, but also to within just two wins of claiming ultimate glory and bringing home banner No. 18 back to Boston.
Easily snubbed from being selected to his second All-Star game this past season, the wing saw himself putting up sensational averages of 23.6 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.1 steals on 47 percent shooting from the floor and 36 percent shooting from deep.
If you think all three of Khris Middleton, James Harden, and Fred VanVleet deserved a nod more than JB, you’re just buggin–look at the numbers leading up to the break, there’s a strong argument to be made that he deserved it more than each of these aforementioned players.
Having said all this, obviously Bradley Beal is actually a perennial All-Star and an already established All-NBA talent so, in theory, one could make the argument that replacing Brown with him could go on to make this squad even more menacing than it already is.
However, to us at the Houdini, this year’s Finals should have taught the Boston Celtics that they should be highly interested in adding on a third strong offensive weapon to their rotation rather than just trying to find another player to fill Jaylen Brown’s role alongside Tatum to serve as the second part of a dynamic duo.
When looking at the Golden State Warriors, it’s easy to tell that they managed to win, not just because they had Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson dropping major buckets and taking a massive part of the team’s offensive scheme, but because they had other big-time bucket-getters in Jordan Poole and newly-minted All-Star Andrew Wiggins to take on a large share of the offensive load along with them.
If one, or even both of Curry and Klay had themselves an off night from the field, the Dubs were blessed with having other incredibly competent scoring options within their arsenal to make up for their shortcomings (remember Game 5, anyone?!).
On the flip side, when it came to the Boston Celtics, sadly when either Tatum or Brown weren’t making their shots, it was painfully apparent that the team had no one else to comfortably lean on in much-needed scoring scenarios and this factor seemed to pave a significant way towards their downfall, unfortunately.
With this, we believe that with any Beal trade, the objective for this oganization should only be to formulate a Big 3 with he and the Jays and, should Washington not be interested in swapping out their star if Brown isn’t on the table, then Boston shouldn’t be interested in making a move at all.