Local talent who just won NBA championship not interested in signing with Boston Celtics

Boston-area product Bruce Brown of Wakefield has no interest in a return home to play for the Boston Celtics this offseason, or a departure to play anywhere else but in the Mile High City, during free agency after being a part of the 2023 NBA Championship Denver Nuggets and closing out the Miami Heat in five games on June 12. Brown told reporters as much postgame.

“I want to stay,” Brown said. “It’s a perfect fit. And money is not everything. The money will come. So I’m not worried about that right now.”

Brown averaged 11.4 points and 4.4 rebounds in 27 minutes per game over the course of the Nuggets’ gentlemen’s sweep of the Heat. That performance will likely double his current $6.8 million salary over the offseason. Relative to the rest of the league, the Boston Celtics won’t have much to offer Brown, or anyone else in free agency for that matter, due to their current cap situation — and that cap situation will only get more complicated with a potential Jaylen Brown supermax incoming.

Bruce Brown wants to bring Larry O’Brien Trophy home to city that should’ve seen the Boston Celtics’ Banner 18

Per the Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn, Brown wants to bring the Larry O’Brien Trophy back to Dorchester — a neighborhood that should’ve seen the hometown Boston Celtics bring it home instead.

With Miami coming out and offering little competition to Denver for the majority of the Finals, it’s tough not to think about how the Celtics would’ve done in the same situation. We’ll never know what could’ve happened, but after witnessing the team come together to overcome the Ime Udoka situation at the beginning of the season, a 3-2 hole against the Philadelphia 76ers, and a 3-0 hole against the Heat, it’s hard not to think that the team would’ve banded together in its second Finals go-round had they just finished the job in the Eastern Conference Finals.