Five days ago, the Boston Celtics agreed to trade Jaylen Brown for Paul George and draft compensation. The trade could not be made official until today, so the team hasn’t been able to officially discuss the details or explain the thought process behind the trade. That airspace has invited rumors, inuendo, conspiracy theories, educated guesses (and some uneducated ones), and every opinion under the sun.
Later today we’ll hear from Brad Stevens and Bill Chisholm directly. We’ll get their official statements
on the trade and we’ll hear them respond to many questions. I’m just not entirely sure if we’ll hear the full truth of what transpired and what it means for the future of the franchise.
I don’t have a crystal ball, but here are some categories of subjects that are sure to be addressed.
Financial Flexibility
One reason they may have decided to move on from Brown was his contract. Several smart people have pointed out that he’s getting supermax money and probably wouldn’t be ranked by many as a top 5 player in the league (or pick your range). Which makes him a bit overpaid in a league where the 2nd apron is treated as a defacto hard cap. Sure, even the biggest Jaylen Brown fans might accept that, but that’s why you lean into cheaper, high value contracts (like the guys on rookie deals and Payton Pritchard who’s on one of the highest value deals in the league). It also doesn’t explain why you would take back Paul George, widely considered one of the worst contracts in basketball.
I have a feeling that Brad Stevens will talk about flexibility on some level, because flexibility is one of his favorite buzzwords. Chisholm will field questions about how much of this was an ownership mandate, but it doesn’t really come across as a cost cutting move because they didn’t actually cut much cost in the deal.
We probably won’t get the full picture of how much money influenced this deal.
Analytics
One of the most popular topics being discussed in the aftermath of this trade has been the role of analytics in the evaluation of Jaylen’s value. The “well actually” articles and data analysis deep dives have centered around his advanced analytics that can be looked at to paint a pretty negative picture of Jaylen’s value to a basketball team.
I’m not going to go into detail pro or con on those numbers. I think analytics are very much a critical part of the game today and need to be considered as part of the overall analysis. The limitations to Jaylen’s game are well documented and don’t always need numbers to back them up. But it has always seemed to me that his positive impact almost always outweighed his struggles.
This is going to be a very delicate thing to address at the press conference. How do they justify the deal with numbers without it looking like they are trashing their former pillar of the team going out?
If he is really a net negative on the court, why did the team invest so much into him in the first place? Why wouldn’t they have traded him earlier? What changed and when did it change? Again, I’m skeptical we’ll hear the full truth about how much the numbers influenced this decision.
The Human Element
There are a lot of other theories and rumors that I’m just going to lump together under the heading of “the Human Element.”
Did Jaylen want his own team? It has been reported that he never asked for a trade, so I’m guessing that won’t be a stated reason. We don’t know how much he indicated a desire to the team to move on or if he was planning on demanding a trade later.
Was the team frustrated with the way Jaylen spoke about the past season on his twitch streams? Honestly, this seems weak even writing it down. Many pearl clutching words have been written and spoken about his “favorite season” comments, which were addressed by him and easily explained away. I don’t buy that this was a big issue and I highly doubt that it will be named explicitly by the team as a reason for the trade.
Did Jayson Tatum want to move on? Personally, I doubt this has anything to do with it and even if it was, (for so many reasons) they would never admit it to be true or have anything to do with the trade.
Style of Play
This might be the only thing that makes some sense to me, but on the other hand it doesn’t. Maybe Jaylen shoots too many contested two pointers for the analytics team to be comfortable with. Of course, those are sometimes the only shots that you can get in the playoffs when all the better shots are taken away. So it helps to have a guy that can make those shots.
Brad Stevens stressed the need to put more pressure on the rim. Well, Jaylen does a much better job of that than Paul George, who has evolved into more of a deep threat perimeter player than anything else.
Maybe the team wasn’t confident that Jaylen would be ok sliding back into the 1B role he had before (related to the above section on The Human Element) and George will be happy being a 2nd or 3rd option. That’s not a great reason to make this trade either, and most likely won’t be named as a primary reason.
Timing
One big question that should absolutely be addressed is “why now?” The word that keeps coming to mind is “desperation.” By all accounts, it seemed like the team did not have good offers for Jaylen but were urgently motivated to complete a deal now. Why?
In any negotiation, you need to have a feel for what your walking away price is and be prepared to walk away if you don’t get it. Somehow, they either put a much lower value on Jaylen than most would have expected, or they were so desperate to get a deal done that they accepted under market value. Couldn’t they have gotten this same kind of deal later in the summer or even at the trade deadline?
Are there other deals coming? If so when? And why couldn’t this have waited to be combined with those additional moves?
Not sure if we’ll get satisfactory answers for this topic, but it will be interesting to hear their responses.
Must See TV
One thing I know, I will be watching and listening very carefully to what is said (and isn’t said). We need answers from the Celtics leadership. I’m just not sure if the answers will tell the full story or if they will be satisfactory to fans.
The cognitive dissonance of this still puzzles me. Brad Stevens has “won” so many deals over the years and has built up so much trust. It is just so jarring to see him “lose” one of this magnitude. What does that mean for the near and long term future? Is there anything that he can say in this press conference that is going to restore part of that trust? I guess we’ll see.
We will, of course, report on the presser. Feel free to use this post as an open thread for comments below.
