Why Giannis Trade Shouldn't Be Celtics' Top Priority amid Jaylen Brown, NBA Rumors

A surprise exit out of this NBA postseason's first-round could send the Boston Celtics sprinting toward a busy summer.

They just shouldn't get carried away here.

Yes, the result was disappointing, but it shouldn't be so jarring as to torpedo the confidence in this core. And yet, you wonder if that's exactly what's happening with Boston being legitimately connected to the seemingly inevitable Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes.

The Celtics are, as league sources told The Athletic's Sam Amick and Eric Nehm, "a team to watch on the Antetokounmpo front." The reporters added this classification came even before rumblings about potential frustration from Celtics All-Star forward Jaylen Brown came about.

Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens refuted that report and said his conversations with Brown have been "nothing but positive." Jayson Tatum has brushed them aside, too.

It feels like most arrows point toward the team wanting to keep moving forward with the Brown-Tatum tandem intact. As it absolutely should.

The two have already co-authored a championship run together. They've basically been contenders whenever they've been healthy, and they seemed like inner-circle contenders again this season before the offense stalled and Tatum's knee acted up late in that first-round upset.

Disappointment to this degree often leads to soul-searching, and the Celtics probably have some mirror-facing in their future. But the idea of moving Brown—certainly the cleanest way to make an Antetokounmpo trade—lands somewhere between laughable and ludicrous.

Now, maybe things feel dramatically different if Brown shuts down extension talks this offseason and makes it clear he's not happy with his current setup, but that would be the only point at which Boston would need to discuss an All-Star deal. And while it's impossible to say how Brown is feeling, there are no outward signs suggesting he's even considering a scenery change.

So, the Celtics shouldn't give this a second thought. Antetokounmpo is awesome, but he's not worth breaking up what has already proved to be a championship core.

He is two years older than Brown, by the way, and, perhaps not coincidentally, encountering more availability issues. Antetokounmpo is also a significantly worse shooter, which is a concern both for how he'll handle the aging curve and how he'd fit Boston's space-based offense.

Look, it isn't often that an NBA team is better off ignoring a superstar's availability, and the Celtics should probably have their phone lines open just in case an opportunity arises that's too good to ignore.

But that's as active as Boston should be with this process—at most, a passive observer.

As for actual summer priorities, the Celtics have those aforementioned extension talks with Brown to discuss, a decision to make with impending free agent Nikola Vučević and a couple of draft picks to help build out this bench (Nos. 27 and 40). They have some big roster-building assets at their disposal, too, like a sizable trade exception and the full midlevel exception.

That's the kind of stuff that should hold the Shamrocks' attention. They can let everyone else fawn over the Greek Freak and discuss destinations that actually make sense.