Georges Niang just made Celtics fans look foolish thanks to Jaylen Brown

Jaylen Brown had all of the Georges Niang haters SICK on Tuesday night. They've actually never been down worse than they are now.

Since news broke that Niang had been traded to the Boston Celtics last month, the energy towards him has been incredibly weird. Fans have been on social media whining about the move and calling for the front office to “get him off of their team.”

Every time the Celtics have included Niang in social media posts, the comments have been a cesspool.

I’m sure there’s some “he’s chubby, so there’s no way he could possibly be a winning basketball player” mixed in there, but a lot of the negativity stems from his run-in with JB during the 2023 NBA Playoffs.

The then-Philadelphia 76ers forward grabbed Brown’s leg after he fell into the 76ers’ bench trying to save a loose ball. Brown didn’t take kindly to Niang’s nonsense, but that was the extent of it. There was no added force by Niang where he would’ve been trying to injure Brown.

“I think he just thought, like, ‘Maybe let me just try to grab him to slow him down a little bit,’ ” Brown said of the incident back in 2023. “I don’t think Niang’s a bad guy or anything. I work out with him in the offseason. I just think he just got caught up in the intensity of the game and made a play and I responded to it.”

It turns out Georges Niang and Jaylen Brown don't hate each other

On Tuesday, both he and Niang were at TD Garden for the Connecticut Sun vs. Indiana Fever WNBA matchup. The two sat courtside together and posed for pictures, making it clear that there’s no ill will between them.

Brown even shared clips of himself and Niang on his Instagram story after the fact.

I mean, you would’ve thought that Niang had some sort of WWE-level feud with Brown and the Celtics with the way people were attacking him online. It’s, in my opinion, one of the fanbase’s saddest moments in recent years. 

Not to mention that Niang is from Massachusetts. Him becoming a member of the Celtics is an awesome story, especially considering the lack of NBA-level talent in the northeast. This sort of thing should be celebrated.

Is it a bummer that the trade Boston made to land him was essentially a salary dump to clear Kristaps Porzingis’ $30 million contract and dive below the second apron? Sure. Was it Niang’s fault that the team had to do this? No.

There’s also a piece to all of this where fans are naive to how impactful Niang can be for Boston.

Since the 2019-20 season, when he first saw real minutes for the Utah Jazz, the six-foot-seven-inch forward has shot 40% or higher from three-point range on a respectable volume almost every year. The only time when he fell short of that efficient clip was his 2023-24 season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, during which he still made 37.6% of his long-range attempts.

For his career, he sits just below 40% as a long-range marksman.

He’s also a defensive irritant who’s going to make things difficult for whoever it is he’s defending. Niang aggravated Jayson Tatum enough last November in an NBA Cup game to get him fired up after a big basket at the end of the third quarter.

Niang is a classic “love him when he’s on your team, hate him when he’s not” player. The sad bunch of Celtics fans who have been wasting their energy hate-tweeting about him are going to learn that very quickly.