Unfortunately, the toothpaste may be out of the tube for the Boston Celtics and Jaylen Brown. For what feels like the millionth time in his 10-year career, JB’s name was in trade rumors, and it has been reported that Boston offered him in a trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Now, after coming up short in that pursuit, there’s a prevailing notion in the media that the Celtics will be forced to trade JB anyway.
Brian Windhorst stated that he thinks the Celtics will now hold a bidding war for Brown; Marc Stein said how Brown reacts to this trade is the loudest question in the league; and Shams Charania reported that the Celtics are “listening, engaging, and discussing” trades for the man who just finished 6th in MVP voting.
Who knows what Brad Stevens and the Celtics are actually going to do with Brown, but this is an awful lot of smoke for there to be no fire whatsoever.
Celtics can't trade for a better player than Brown
And the problem here for the Celtics is that with the Giannis dream officially dead, there’s no way for them to trade Brown for a better player next season. Antetokounmpo was the only clear superstar available on the trade market, and now, any team that wants to acquire Jaylen will be doing so to win immediately.
Teams acquiring Brown would be adding a player who turns 30 in October and is squarely in his prime, with three years remaining on his supermax contract. That team will be in win-now mode from the jump, so they aren’t going to package win-now assets to land the 2024 Finals MVP.
Trading Brown would be soft reset for Celtics
Most realistic, hypothetical offers that we’ve heard floated revolve around young players, role players, and draft picks. Depending on how you feel about Brown and some of the rumored players (Trey Murphy III, Alperen Sengun, Shaedon Sharpe, etc.), you could argue whether these deals would be good value or not.
But what’s inarguable is that the Celtics won’t get better next season through a Brown trade. They’ll be taking a step back to rebuild with the return. There could be a long-term vision to target players who can take a leap or to move some of the assets in another trade for a star, but they aren’t going to find another Jaylen Brown by next season.
And that’s a problem with a 28-year-old Jayson Tatum coming off Achilles surgery and entering the heart of his prime. The Celtics need to prioritize winning now, and it’s hard to envision a scenario where trading Brown accomplishes that goal.
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