It seemed hard enough to fathom that the Boston Celtics were trying to trade Jaylen Brown for Giannis Antetokounmpo last week, but after that fell through, it made it all the harder that they then sold off Brown for Paul George and two first-round picks.
Regardless of one's feelings about the trade itself, the Brown trade has seemingly confirmed something else about the Giannis pursuit: it wasn't about trying to get Giannis as much as it was about trying to get rid of Brown.
It hurts to say this because Brown is an all-time Celtic through and through. Every time Boston demanded more of him, he delivered. That peaked this season, when he had a legitimate MVP campaign while making his second All-NBA team. Brown led the charge in a season in which the Celtics exceeded expectations with him taking the mantle as the No. 1.
And yet, Brown is gone, and pretty much everyone is stupefied. However, that makes the Celtics' pursuit of Giannis even more telling, because it should still be pretty fresh on everyone's mind that Boston didn't dangle everything for the Greek Freak.
They stopped at Brown and two unprotected first-round picks. If they truly wanted Giannis more than anything, they would have succumbed to the Bucks' demands, i.e. including Hugo Gonzalez and Baylor Scheierman.
With Brown now gone, it's become abundantly clear that the Celtics' Giannis pursuit was about trying to sell high as they possible could on Brown without compromising their future.
It makes the failed Giannis pursuit look worse though
To think that Boston had the chance to knock out two birds with one stone with a Brown (plus assets) for Giannis swap makes it harder to know he was trade for aging Paul George and four draft assets. Even if Giannis isn't exactly young, it's fair to say he is in a higher tier than George or Brown for that matter.
That's why not getting Giannis isn't the biggest failure from this whole situation, not trading Brown. The opportunity was right there to get one of the best NBA players bot currently and of this era, and you could have gotten him for someone you apparently didn't want
But then again, it takes two to tango. Perhaps maybe Milwaukee simply didn't want to trade Giannis to Boston because they were scared of what the Celtics would look like. Plus, they may have canvassed the league to see what Brown's value was and weren't impressed.
Now Boston has the most questions they've had since Stevens took over in 2021. Maybe he thought it was better to rip off the band-aid now than it would have been a few years down the line, but until the Celtics step foot on the hardwood again, they will be heavily under the microscope from the decisions they've made this summer.
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