The latest report to come out from Marc Stein and Jake Fischer has continued the Jaylen Brown trade rumors, suggesting that there is one team most actively pursuing Brown: the Portland Trail Blazers. This makes sense as the Blazers took some steps last season and have a nice young core.
They made the playoffs as a 7-seed behind a breakout season from Deni Avdija, and they are clearly looking to build on it. There were some whispers around the league that they wanted to get in on Giannis Antetokounmpo and could make a compelling offer owning some of the Bucks’ picks, but Giannis showed no desire to go there, and things didn’t progress.
Trail Blazers actively pursuing Jaylen Brown trade
But now, it appears that Portland has turned its attention to Brown and is looking to add the All-NBA wing to its core. It’s a completely reasonable idea for a young Portland team, and adding the 2024 Finals MVP could vault them into the top-4 discussion in the Western Conference very quickly. The problem is that they don’t have much to offer the Celtics.
Portland’s trade package is largely built around the salary of Jerami Grant, who’s set to make over $34 million next season, with a player option after that. Grant isn’t unpayable, but that contract is a doozy. Beyond that, the Blazers would almost certainly want to keep as much of their young core together as possible.
The Celtics could look to snag at least one of Donovan Clingan, Scoot Henderson, and Shaedon Sharpe, but those players are more of bets on upside than guys who can help Boston win a title immediately. Toumani Camara is another interesting name to watch, but the Cs are already loaded with young wings.
Celtics would need a haul of draft picks and young players from Portland
The meat of this offer would be draft picks. It’s noteworthy that on the same day that Stein and Fischer reported that Portland is most intrigued by Brown, Shams Charania reported that the Celtics are demanding four first-round picks in exchange for JB.Â
This makes sense because other teams we’ve heard floated, like the Rockets and Pelicans, can offer players who may not be as good as Brown, but would be very helpful and could potentially become core players in Boston. The Blazers can’t make that kind of offer, so it’s fair to assume the Celtics would want a lot of draft capital back in any deal.
Those could still be great assets, but what are they doing for Jayson Tatum’s prime? Maybe the plan is to flip those picks for other players? That could be a reasonable path to pursue players like Trey Murphy III or Rudy Gobert, but that would just require even more deals.
If the Celtics are dead set on trading Brown - which is still a big 'if' - and this is the best deal they can get, so be it. But hopefully, they can at least acquire Clingan as their center of the future, add Camara for his value and defense, grab a couple of prospects in Scoot and Shaedon, and load up on draft picks. I certainly don’t love it, but I suppose Brad Stevens and company could make it work.
Add us as a preferred source on Google