In order to understand the Jaylen Brown trade, its associated outrage, the mass confusion about how little Boston got back and the surrounding circus about how good Jaylen Brown may or may not be, we need to talk about another (in)famous trade.
On Wednesday, the Celtics sent Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and two future first-round picks. That is shockingly little for an All-NBA, Finals MVP and borderline face-of-the-franchise level player not even in his 30s. But before we talk about Brown, George, the Celtics, the 76ers, Brad Stevens, Bill Chisholm, any of them, we need to talk about, you guessed it, Luka Doncic.
After the Luka trade, there were a lot of takes. Most of them the same (“this is the worst trade in NBA history”), though some of them were stupid or just intentionally clickbaity (“the Mavericks won the trade”). But the best one, by far, was the nuanced counterpoint, made memorably (to me at least) by Chuck Klosterman. Loosely paraphrased: If you thought that that trade meant you could win the NBA Finals this year, then you can rationalize it. It’s not necessarily a correct diagnosis of your situation, but it would be a rational decision.
That is, to date, the only contrarian opinion on the Luka trade that I felt actually was fair to the parties involved. Every other formulation of “the Mavericks were going nowhere with Luka” or “defense wins championships” was either in bad faith or simply naive. But the view that treated Nico Harrison and the Mavericks as rational actors rather than visionaries or idiots was my favorite.
The same may, eventually, be true for the Jaylen Brown trade: the return did not line up with his reputation, no, but it is likely that the Celtics made a rational decision based on their evaluation of the player and the market. And while the return is disappointing, arguably shocking, for Celtics fans (myself included), the trade should not be treated as patently insane.
There are three possible explanations for why Boston pulled the trigger on such a flabbergasting lowball return: first, that Brown had demanded a trade and the two sides’ relationship had soured beyond the point of no return. This story has been repeatedly debunked by those with information from inside the Celtics organization. Second, that new owner Bill Chisholm is cost-cutting in order to make the team more profitable for his private equity partners. And while the influence of private equity in sports is a fascinating tale to tell, this version of events is an unnecessary and unlikely conspiracy theory; Boston offered Brown for Giannis Antetokounmpo, a player they would have immediately signed to an extension that would have exceeded the remaining value on Brown’s deal. Total team cost is not the reason.
That leaves reason number three, essentially the only one that makes any sense if we’re trying to be rational: the Celtics and Brad Stevens had decided, at some point in the past year, that it was impossible to win another championship paying Jaylen Brown a supermax contract.
As was a topic of serious discussion on social media this week, Brown’s advanced metrics suggest he is an inefficient player whose team actually performs better when he is off the court. And while this is an impossibly prickly debate to wade into, let’s just skip the wading, put on a hazmat suit and cannonball in.
Jaylen Brown has been a winning player in his career. The Celtics have won an absurd number of games this decade. He was instrumental to their run to win the 2024 NBA Championship, and will perhaps be the last man ever to wear number seven in Boston. He has also been a frustrating player to watch and to root for. His persistent issues with clumsy dribbling seemed to create problems for the Celtics out of thin air. His free throw shooting, which majorly improved the last two seasons, is still below 75 percent for his career. But he has declined as a three-point shooter and has never been especially efficient from the floor. None of that is contradictory; Brown is incredibly talented and has been very successful — he is also not Jayson Tatum, the Celtics’ utterly non-negotiable cornerstone, nor are the two on the same level.
Delusions that Tatum and Brown were somehow 1A and 1B (or even equals) rather than the clear number one and number two that they actually are, have pervaded Celtics circles since I was a small child. These delusions are what led to the most vitriolic outrage from Celtics Land on Wednesday, but there is no doubt that Brown is a better player than what he was traded for; George is an aging, injury-prone wing with a similarly expensive albeit shorter contract. Even if Boston had long decided to deal Brown, why the Celtics decided to make this move now rather than wait for something better is perplexing. But it is also possible nothing better would ever become available; without a full understanding of the market, we can’t be sure.
Tatum is a supermax player, and he will remain as such for the Celtics into the future. Most likely, the Celtics front office concluded that Brown’s supermax contract made it impossible for them to realistically compete in the next three years. Yes, they won a title with both Tatum and Brown, but that was before they were both on mega-deals and with a once-in-a-generation superteam Boston quickly became unable to pay. It is not feasible for the Celtics to put that kind of talent around Tatum and Brown ever again.
That meant trading Brown was rational, something I have repeatedly stated on various internet publishing platforms since what feels like the dawn of time but is actually just, like, last May. And even though Brown is an excellent basketball player, the contract appears to have prohibited any real market from emerging. Even I underestimated how little the Celtics and the rest of the NBA thought of Brown as an asset.
Boston did not wind up with Antetokounmpo because the Milwaukee Bucks did not see a team built around Jaylen Brown as a viable path to contention, now or in the future. Nor did the rest of the NBA, as Brown will now be second or third option on the 76ers behind Tyrese Maxey and maybe Joel Embiid. His reputation was, and should continue to be, far greater than what the Celtics got in return. But the simple reality that he makes too much money for what he actually contributes is probably the straw that broke the camel’s back.
There may be another straw. We will probably get some kind of now-they-tell-us feature story that describes how the front office slowly became disenchanted with Brown and how their relationship frayed. There may be some organizational policy that is not public information, but I will not speculate. And you can read all about why the George-plus-two-picks deal is so lopsided for Philadelphia here by the meritorious Ricky O’Donnell. I’m not here to tell you it’s a good deal.
I’m just here to say that it is, for the most part, a rational decision. We may be tempted to think that teams and players are two individuals, relating on an even playing field with emotions and attachment and associated respect. But teams are not individuals; they are groups, with complex interests and longer-term priorities. Whatever “responsibilities” they have to certain players, fans or to a city often break at the stone of cold logic. It’s not pretty, but trading Jaylen Brown for a pittance may still have been the best, or only, path forward. This is not the Luka trade, which had no bidding war. This trade was the result of the bidding war, and probably reflected his actual market value.
In the end, Brown’s contract may just be too expensive. Paying for past performance is the recipe for NBA disaster, especially in the most restrictive financial ecosystem the league has ever had. It is a bold statement, one I’m not necessarily sure I would make myself, but if Boston had truly decided that Brown was blocking their ability to build a winning team, trading him for the best offer they had, however insultingly low, makes rational sense.
