Winners and Losers from Boston Celtics' Blockbuster Jaylen Brown Trade
After failing to trade Jaylen Brown for Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Boston Celtics are instead sending their five-time All-Star to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George, two first-round picks and two second-round picks.
Shams Charania of ESPN first reported what is now, easily, the biggest shocker of the NBA offseason.
Kyle Neubeck of PHLY Sports has since dropped the draft-pick details, so here's a full overview of the deal:
- Boston Celtics Receive: Paul George, 2028 first-round pick (potential to be a swap that's more favorable to Boston), 2031 first-round pick (unprotected), 2028 second-round (most favorable of Golden State, Milwaukee and Oklahoma City), 2030 second-round pick (most favorable of Phoenix, Portland and Washington)
- Philadelphia 76ers Receive: Jaylen Brown
The nature of the 2028 first-round pick or swap is either yet-to-be determined or convoluted. We nevertheless have enough to run through the complete catalog of winners and losers.
Winner: Philadelphia 76ers
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Paul George has turned himself into an impactful complementary player but is still on one of the league's least team-friendly contracts. Shelling out $110-plus million for someone over the age of 35 only passes the sniff test if they can function as the No. 1 or No. 2. George is no longer available enough or good enough to check that box.
Jaylen Brown is a different story. He just made second-team All-NBA. Even if you adjust for the deflated pool of eligible players, he is at worst an annual All-NBA candidate.
His on-off splits are about to receive renewed attention. So be it. Boston's historically stellar play without him on the floor says more about the level of competition Brown faces as a starter, and about the competency of the bench. He has played in nearly 100 more games than George over the past half-decade. The Sixers are getting the better, more reliable player.
Not that Philly's side is without risk. Brown turns 30 in October and is owed $180-plus million over the next three years. He isn't the most plug-and-play alpha option, either. Pick a season at random, and George has most likely graded out as the more efficient spot-up shooter.
Still, Brown's offensive workload is part of the appeal.
Joel Embiid's availability is forever in question. The Sixers need someone who can, when needed, ferry heavy from-scratch creation. Tyrese Maxey alone isn't enough, and Philly doesn't have time to wait for VJ Edgecombe's self-starting to even out if it wants to contend in the near term. Brown was more efficient than George on unassisted shots last season while propping up much heavier usage, per BBall Index.
Forking over multiple first-round picks induces a little nausea, given the downside of having Embiid on the books through 2028-29. But the alternative was to spend those same picks shedding the three seasons and $180-plus million he's owed, then start over.
Perhaps that direction would have been safer. Ditto for just keeping that status quo and toiling away in the middle. This path gives the Sixers an actual chance of coming out of the Eastern Conference that needn't be entirely couched with "So long as Embiid does what he's never done before and remains healthy."
Loser: Boston Celtics
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More charitable interpretations will give the Celtics a "TBD." Surely, they have another move or three lined up. Because surely, they didn't go from dangling Jaylen Brown for Giannis Antetokounmpo to demanding four first-round picks for his services to accepting (maybe) two firsts and one of the league's worst contracts.
We can revisit Boston's logic and motivations if and when it completes other deals. For now, this is tantamount to selling low when it was under no real pressure to do so.
Feelings and egos were no doubt fractured by the latest round(s) of rumors and Brown's comments on Twitch and Twitter. Last I checked, though, everyone involved is an adult. Team president Brad Stevens, head coach Joe Mazzulla, Jayson Tatum, Brown and, hell, let's throw in Brian Scalabrine could have—should have—squashed any lingering ill will over dinner.
Instead, the Celtics accepted a package that suggests they had no choice but to trade their second-best player, who also happened to be the best player on a 56-win team without Tatum, or risk internal implosion. This situation was hardly that binary.
Even if Brown was agitating for an exit behind the scenes, he has three guaranteed seasons left on his deal. Boston was at minimum one year away from treating this with urgency.
The offensive drop-off may not be felt as much if George is available. That's a mighty big if these days. He is the more reliable, complementary shooter and rivals Brown's efficiency as a pick-and-roll scorer. But he is no longer hard-wired to be a first or second option who also takes on tough defensive assignments.
That's going to be a problem even if Tatum's first full year back, following a ruptured Achilles, sees him return to top-five-player status.
Boston has exacerbated one of its biggest weaknesses with its trade, too. Stevens seemed pretty perturbed at his end-of-season presser that the Celtics ranked 29th in free-throw-attempt rate and dead last in rim frequency. That explains his interest in Giannis.
It does not explain shipping out your biggest source of shooting fouls and rim pressure (non-big-man division).
George generated just 1.5 attempts at the hoop in the half-court per 75 possessions last season. That's less than half of Brown's 3.4.
The Celtics are worse after this trade, at both ends of the floor, plain and simple. But the most maddening part of all? They didn't need to be.
Winner: Baylor Scheierman and Hugo González
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The Celtics refusing to include Hugo González and Baylor Scheierman in prospective Giannis Antetokounmpo trade packages was quite the vote of confidence.
This is an even bigger one.
More than anything, Jaylen Brown was the ultimate safety net for the offensive development of Boston's young combo wings. He isn't the most talented or effective passer, but the on-ball gravity was an opportunity-driver for others.
That layer of protection is now gone.
Scheierman and González were already in line for more minutes. The Celtics are now trusting them to get up more threes (González especially), hit them at similar or better clips and likely even juice their on-ball usage.
This is great news for them. Both have shown enough to warrant more extensive roles. Whether it's also great news for the Celtics, though, remains to be seen.
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Loser: Lakers and Suns
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So the Sixers scooped up Jaylen Brown—an All-NBA player still in his prime—for the grand total of two first-round picks and a Paul George contract that 99 out of 100 people believed would need first-round sweeteners to move on its own.
Somebody better check on the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers front offices.
Giving up an unprotected 2033 first-rounder for Miles Bridges and a 2029 first-rounder likely to convey in the 20s was always an astoundingly asinine move by the Suns. Philly landing Brown without giving up a first that conveys after 2031 and while getting off a worse contract than anything Phoenix sent out makes what was already inexplicable look dumber.
Michigan State forever. Or something.
Lakers team president Rob Pelinka, meanwhile, continues to show he's ill-equipped to negotiate trades with anyone other than former lead Dallas Mavericks executive Nico Harrison. Los Angeles just surrendered control of four first-rounders—outrights in 2031 and 2033, swaps in 2028 and 2030—for the right to pay Walker Kessler $130 million after he missed all but five games last season with a shoulder injury.
To be fair, Kessler could pan out perfectly for the Lakers. To be even more fair, that doesn't negate what was clearly poor asset management.
Winner: Hornets, Clippers and Jazz
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Both the Charlotte Hornets and Utah Jazz are here at the expense of the Suns and Lakers, respectively.
Utah's defense will miss Walker Kessler, but lineups with Jaren Jackson Jr. at the 5 may have morphed into its default closing lineup anyway. It has plenty of assets to go out and get a cheaper big man who might not be nearly as impactful but is still an upgrade over Jusuf Nurkić and Kyle Filipowski.
Charlotte's ability to extract an unprotected 2033 first-rounder from Phoenix while using contract-year Miles Bridges as the centerpiece may go down as the biggest heist of the offseason.
The Los Angeles Clippers, meanwhile, can comfortably say they just got more for a 35-year-old Kawhi Leonard than the Celtics received for 29-year-old Jaylen Brown. And that framing doesn't even do their success enough justice.
Kawhi is headed into the final year of his deal and has played in 65 games (or its shortened-season equivalent) just twice since 2017. He was also only willing to sign an extension with two teams, one of which was the Toronto Raptors. The Clippers getting as much as they did is insane.
Just so we're clear: This doesn't make the Raptors losers. They overpaid for Leonard, but you can now envision a scenario in which they are a top-three playoff seed. Good luck doing the same for the Lakers or Suns out west.
Loser: Detroit Pistons
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Consider this a tentative loss for the Detroit Pistons. That's the good news.
The bad news: Their "tentative" label won't vanish simply by hashing out a new deal with restricted free agent Jalen Duren.
Detroit mistakenly played it safe (read: lame) at this past year's trade deadline. After rattling off 60 regular-season wins and grabbing the No. 1 seed, it might well have flamed out in the first round had Franz Wagner not gotten injured.
Now, while heavy hitters around them are taking big swings, the Pistons are out here re-signing Kevin Huerter, adding John Collins and Isaiah Joe but losing Isaiah Stewart and waiting on Duren.
That is uninspiring to say the least, with the potential to be so much worse.
The To-Be Determined Crew
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Jaylen Brown
A change of scenery should do Brown good given the circumstances under which he's leaving Boston. But he's joining a different ecosystem with more prominent mouths to feed at full strength. That could make his job easier. It could also wind up being a more complicated fit.
Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe
Joining forces with Brown takes a ton of pressure off the shoulders of Maxey and Edgecombe. This is, without question, a win for easing Edgecombe's defensive burden. It may also warp usage for him and Maxey—not just in volume, but in type.
Both play flexible-enough styles that should ensure they figure it out, even if it takes time. But the nights in which both Brown and Joel Embiid are available loom as huge variables.
New York Knicks
On the one hand, the New York Knicks may have sent the Eastern Conference into a tizzy thanks to their historically dominant playoff run. The Celtics' actions are certainly those of a team that has clocked them, if not fears them.
Living rent-free between your enemies' ears is a good thing. At the same time, with Brown in Philly, Kawhi Leonard in Toronto, Giannis Antetokounmpo in Miami and Cleveland holding out hope for LeBron James Part 3, there is a chance New York's success ends up creating the biggest threat to its reign.
Dan Favale is a National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
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