One of the trade partners that has been floated for a potential Jaylen Brown deal is the Nuggets. There has been tangible reporting over the past few days that they are in on JB, which makes sense given their need to improve the team around Nikola Jokic and Brown’s seeming availability on the trade market.
On Sunday night, Bill Simmons floated a possible deal that would send Brown and Sam Hauser to the Nuggets, with Jamal Murray and Cam Johnson heading to Boston. This isn’t the first time a Brown/Murray swap has been hypothesized, but it makes very little sense for the Celtics.
At first, it seemed like Brown was only being floated in a potential trade for a true upgrade in Giannis Antetokounmpo. But now that he’s clearly still being shopped, it’s apparent that the goal of Brad Stevens was never just to turn Brown into a better player, but to get off his contract for the most value possible.
The Celtics want draft picks and financial flexibility
This has become even clearer with the reports coming in that Boston is mainly seeking draft capital in a return and that they don’t intend to offer Brown the two-year, $140+ million extension he’s eligible for in the Fall.
This may be hard for Celtics fans to understand, and it may not be a popular opinion, but there’s obviously some sense of belief within the organization that building around multiple supermax contract players in the current CBA is nearly untenable, and that the resources dedicated to Brown could be better used elsewhere to enhance the roster around Jayson Tatum.
Whether that’s an accurate belief or not remains to be seen, and there’s definitely still a chance that the Celtics decide that continuing with Tatum and Brown is better than any alternative in the trade market. But if they do go forward with a trade, based on the team’s goals, a deal with the Nuggets would be a head-scratcher.
Nuggets trade doesn't satisfy Celtics' needs
The Nuggets have no tradeable draft picks or young players. Murray is a very good player, but his contract, like Brown’s, goes for three more years, paying him $50.1 million, $53.8 million, and $57.5 million over that span. That’s slightly lower than Brown’s deal, but not by a substantial amount.
Unless Brad absolutely loves Murray and his fit in Boston, there’s no reason to swap out a proven Celtics commodity in JB for a worse player with major injury concerns. They’d be replacing one questionable contract with an even worse one and taking on a player with major limitations on the defensive end.
Maybe if the deal is around Aaron Gordon and Cam Johnson, or a third team gets involved somehow, this could happen, but as it stands, essentially swapping Brown for Murray is a lateral move - at best - for the Celtics, and one that could very easily end in disaster.
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