You’d think that after the season he’s having, Jaylen Brown would be relatively immune to rumors that put him on the trading block, yet as this week showed, there’s no end to them.
I don’t know of any leading Celtic player over the last 40 years that has been more consistently shopped by fans and media speculators alike. In fact, he may hold the dubious distinction of being the best player in the team’s history to be consistently dangled as trade bait by fans and media.
Let’s put this in context. We’re
not talking about something as heretical as suggesting that the C’s trade Havlicek during Russ’s heyday, or trading McHale during the Bird years, we’re talking about trading a player who is barely distinguishable from Tatum in terms of his impact on the game.
Ainge drafted two gems in 2016 and 2017, and rather than appreciate both of them, a significant chunk of the Celtics fanbase seems to think that one of them is disposable, that he should be shipped out for something “better.” When Brown was drafted, there was a significant subset of the fanbase—and the media—that thought that Boston should’ve traded that pick, and while membership in that “club” has changed somewhat over time, the club’s never really been dissolved.
The latest installment of this rather silly belief came with a report that Boston “has interest” in Giannis.
I always find these reports fascinating, not for what is said, but for what isn’t said. Rarely—if ever—do you find out if these reports are coming from the buy-side or the sell-side, but my instincts are that they are almost always leaked by the sell-side in an effort to drive up the price of the asset being traded.
Let’s go back to 2014, when Kevin Love was being shopped by the Minnesota Timberwolves.
A persistent rumor at the time was that the Warriors had offered Klay Thompson for Kevin Love.
The reality is that the Wolves were always in pursuit of Thompson, and that the Warriors never made him available in a trade package.
So let’s apply that to talk that the Celtics have “interest” in Giannis.
If you’re the Bucks, there is no team in the league that you want to have as a stalking horse for talks on Giannis. The C’s are loaded with young talent, they have two marquee players, and they are under the luxury tax. Unless draft picks are in question, the Celtics could trump every offer out there for Giannis—if they were prepared to go all-in on him.
This is the team that you want other teams to be afraid of if you’re trying to trade Giannis. You want the rest of the league to think that they have to outbid Boston to get Giannis.
From Boston’s perspective, there’s little incentive to trade for Giannis given the team’s current and future prospects.
I know that may sound crazy, because the Greek “Freak” is such a remarkable individual talent. But consider that Giannis has only played in 36 games this season. Now he may have been held out of some of these games against his will, but that should still give any team looking to acquire him pause. He’s been a pretty durable player and he’s only 31, but that still makes him older than Jaylen and Jayson, with strong concerns about his long-term durability, and then there’s fit.
I look at the Celtics as being a well-oiled machine comparable to the 60s teams. Fit is important for incoming talent, and I don’t know how well Giannis fits into the current roster.
Now you could argue that with a talent like Giannis, you build the roster around him, but that’s easier said than done. A team trading major assets for Giannis, with the goal of rebuilding around him, is potentially going to sacrifice the rest of Giannis’s prime in an effort to get the right pieces around him.
And that gets us to the other rumor that we heard this week. Sam Amick, who told us that Boston “has interest” in Giannis also said that if the C’s have another second round exit they would “look at the landscape” meaning that they could be thinking about another major lineup overhaul.
I find this rumor even sillier than the statement that Boston has “interest” in Giannis.
First of all, people saying this forget that Boston blew up their championship winning lineup just last summer!
As far back as last May, this season was being called a “gap year” and now we’re being told that if the C’s don’t make it to the ECF, the team is going to seriously consider blowing it all up again?
This is a team with two All-NBA class players, a deep and young roster, no luxury tax bill, and the second seed in the Eastern Conference. What part of this setup screams “look at the landscape”?
I mean, criminy, folks, Tatum ain’t even fully healthy yet, and we’re talking about blowing up the team before we even see what it’s capable of?
A team that nobody expected anything of is going to come within hooting distance of 60 wins, and the take that got traction late last week is that the top brass would consider “looking at the landscape” if there’s a second-round exit?
This is, categorically, Not. How. Boston. Does. Things.
If this is how Boston did things, then Joe Mazzulla wouldn’t be coaching the team right now, having blown the ECF in 2023 in his first year as head coach, on another occasion where the team wildly exceeded expectations going into the season.
