Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were quite good together in their nine years as teammates with the Boston Celtics. So much so that they were the personification of excellence, but the fact remains that despite their consistency, they came away with one title together. Impressive as that is, it's hard not to think they could have won more.
The argument for why those two worked as well as they did was because of the talent the two of them had as a duo rather than their chemistry. Their chemistry was never bad by any means, but it felt like their success together primarily stemmed from how good they were individually they were as players rather than how well they worked together as teammates.
It worked just fine, but evidently, their previous success did not deter Boston from wanting to make a change. Ergo, Paul George. George may turn out to be the opposite of Brown: he's not as talented, but he may provide something Brown never quite did for Tatum in Boston: synergy.
Kevin O'Connor used this exact word when making his "semi-bold" prediction that Boston would be better than they were last year.
"George and Tatum looked legitimately good. There was some synergy between those guys. George and Tatum looked like they had more synergy and balance together on the basketball court than Brown and Tatum ever did. It feels stupid to say that, but it just felt like there was a natural flow between those guys. There's no friction between them."
George is returning to familiar territory, being Tatum's right-hand man in Boston because, until he joined Philadelphia, being the second-in-command was his job. He may not be a better player than Brown is, but he may be better at playing next to Tatum than Brown was.
George has gone on the record talking about how he plans to complement Tatum, and the Celtics' wire -to-wire victory over the 76ers is a good tell that they will work wonders together.
The chemistry was never the question
When the trade was initially announced, everyone thought the talent was a downgrade. It definitely was, but what made it worse was George's reputation for being injury-prone. Because he has developed a rap sheet of injuries over the years.
It's very possible that's going to be a problem in Boston too. However, we have to remember that George's first season went badly in Philly because Philly was torn apart by injuries to Joel Embiid and Jared McCain. George got hurt too, but along with the potential ramifications of giving a potential lottery pick to Oklahoma City, they had to tank.
That calls into question whether he was really hurt, or they felt it necessary to hold him out. Last season, he also had his injuries, but he was also suspended for 25 games. If that hadn't happened, he would have appeared in over 60 games.
George could have a semi-comeback season in Boston. It's perfectly reasonable for everyone to have their doubts, but at the same time, they shouldn't be too surprised if George pans out to be the better partner-in-crime to Tatum than Brown was, even if he's not the better player.
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