Analyst predicts Boston Celtics trade offer for two-time MVP

NBA Analysis Network’s Ashish Mathur predicts that the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade price for the Boston Celtics will have to include Jaylen Brown and several future first-round draft picks if the former two-time regular season MVP and 2021 Finals MVP ever hit the market.

“The Celtics signed Jaylen Brown to the richest contract in NBA history this summer,” Mathur prefaced before saying, “To acquire a talent like Antetokounmpo, Boston would have to part ways with Brown and several future draft picks.”

Antetokounmpo likely wouldn’t covet a move to the Celtics given his previously stated interest in teaming with Steph Curry. Boston has often been the Milwaukee Bucks’ biggest roadblock in the postseason, with the 2018 and 2022 series springing to mind. 2019, of course, went the other way because of a certain polarizing point guard overdribbling into difficult hero-ball attempts. Still, if he were to be pursued, it feels like Jayson Tatum would have to be the Jay offered in a proposal from the C’s front office.

The Boston Celtics are all in on the present

Any Antetokounmpo talk is a pure distraction from the task at hand for the Boston Celtics with Kristaps Porzingis now in tow: Banner 18. In handing the reins of the offense over to the efficient Derrick White and adding a third isolation scoring threat in Porzingis, the C’s front office looked to make the final leap into title-winner after flirting with the Larry O’Brien Trophy for five of the last seven seasons with at least an Eastern Conference Finals appearance.

If that doesn’t look like it’s getting done by the trade deadline, the Bucks would have to be equally as bearish on their future. Then there’d have to be a formal request from Antentokounmpo that explicitly includes Boston. That’s hardly a given since it’s been since Kyrie Irving that the Celtics were included on a major name’s trade list.

Bottom line: don’t get lost chasing stars that may not be needed to bring the team back to a glory that hasn’t been felt in a decade and a half and counting.