Jaylen Brown Celtics era over with shocking and inexplicable trade for Paul George

And just like that, it’s over. The Celtics have traded Jaylen Brown to the 76ers for Paul George, two first-round picks, and two second-round picks. 

It’s an underwhelming return and a sad ending for an all-time great Celtic, who’s coming off the best season of his career and won the 2024 Finals MVP. It ends with Boston taking on one of the worst contracts in the league in PG, and a player well past his prime. The talk of 4+ first-round draft picks clearly didn’t come to life either, as the Cs get just two.

To make matters worse, the picks don’t seem to have great value, as it’s being reported as the 76ers’ pick in 2028, which could become a swap (we’ll have to see exactly what that means), and a 2031 unprotected 76ers first. Philly now has Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown, VJ Edgecombe, and Joel Embiid. So, those picks aren’t likely to be very good.

Jaylen Brown trade looks disastrous for Celtics

It’s now evident that the Celtics were truly shopping Brown and that the offers simply were not good. I’m not going to say this is a doomsday scenario until we find out the rest of the details and figure out if Brad Stevens has another move lined up, but on the surface, this one is hard to defend from a Celtics’ standpoint.

They essentially are betting against one of Boston’s all-time greats, in what feels like it was largely a salary dump. Stevens must believe that the team is better off using that money in other ways and continuing with a team that’s more based on Jayson Tatum, perhaps Payton Pritchard, and leaning into the possession-maxing, pace and space, and depth that has been built up.

Celtics need another move

Last season was obviously the blueprint, and in the regular season, it worked very well. Now, we’ll see what it looks like with JT at the helm and a better supporting cast around him, like the Mitchell Robinson addition in free agency.

Hopefully, there is another move lined up and the Celtics are preparing to add a Trey Murphy III-type player to fill out the roster, but unless there’s something we don’t know, this is fairly grim. The relationship was over. There are no two ways about it. Brad made up his mind that he was trading Brown no matter what. The point of no return was reached, and the thought was that it was better to move on without him. 

For the sake of the Celtics and Brad Stevens, let’s hope his right. If not, this will go down as a very dark day in franchise history. A Boston icon, Jaylen Brown, has been traded to an arch-rival that just sent the Celtics home in the playoffs.

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