Coming To Terms With Boston’s New Look

The past 24 hours have been a whirlwind following the Boston Celtics decision to trade Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Paul George, two first round picks, and two second round picks.

If you know me, you know I love the Celtics, and I love Jaylen Brown. My world felt like it was turned upside down when I read the news. How could we send a homegrown franchise cornerstone to a rival?

It took a lot of time, a lot of angry messages, a lot of sad moments scrolling through tribute videos, and a lot of free-time with my thoughts to finally settle my mind. Here’s where I’ve landed:

Eye-test, JB is a really, really special player. He cares about hooping in its purest form, and plays hard on both ends of the court. He wants to see his team succeed, and he’s willing to do the work to make that happen. He can score with the best of them, is incredibly explosive and athletic, and he can really lock someone down on defense too.

I think when people say he wants to be the definitive #1, and that he won’t be happy otherwise, they are greatly discrediting him. I think he’s very competitive, and has worked very hard to get where he’s at, so just like any competitor, he wants to be the best version of himself. I think he’s more than willing to be the best version of himself within a specific role for the sake of the team, and that gets overlooked much too often.

He does have his faults, though. He can get tunnel vision on offense, and can sometimes have poor shot selection because of his confidence in himself. He also gets lost off-ball on defense too often, even though he’s a great on-ball defender. Sometimes he feels like he needs to take over a game, whether that’s because the team is down and needs an energy shift, or if they’re blowing someone else out and he wants to cook. These can be very polarizing experiences. I’ve usually trusted him in these moments, but it wasn’t always the most popular sentiment amongst fans.

The analytics really don’t like him. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a bigger discrepancy between the eye-test and the analytics before. I tend to favor the eyes because of the success he’s had beyond the stats. I can’t lie and say how unfavorable the analytics were to him didn’t concern me, though. I also see why Boston was ready to try something new. The second apron sucks. Having two max contract players on your roster is really hard.

JB is genuinely a good dude, and I’ll die on that hill. He’s done more for Boston in 10 years than a lot of people could do in a lifetime, and that goes beyond the fact that he had the money and the means to do so. He cares. He wants to uplift his community. I’m sure he’ll still continue his philanthropic work in the city, but I would expect him to shift the majority of his focus to Philadelphia now, and they’re going to be incredibly lucky to have him.

Jaylen also cares about his individuality and his freedom. That doesn’t always jive in the sports world, especially when only one team gets to win every year, the contracts are that expensive, and every team becomes incredibly risk-averse when they see success. While he sees his streams and community outreach as authenticity, others often see it as a liability.

At this point, I think I’m mostly upset that Jaylen is in Philly. I don’t like seeing my favorite players play for rivals. I really want to root for him, and as an individual, I certainly will, but I don’t want Philly to see a crumb of success as a team.

I don’t hate Paul George. I think he’ll get a lot of unnecessary and unwarranted criticism from fans just because he was the returning player in the deal. I’m honestly a little excited to see what he can do next to Derrick and JT. I am very concerned about his health, though, and obviously the contract is ugly. It would be a lot easier to be hopeful if he was on a friendlier deal, but we’ll have to see how the front office navigates from here.

The return is what it is. I wasn’t in the rooms, so I don’t know if this was truly the best offer. Brad Stevens has proven to be pretty good in all other accounts, so I’m willing to believe that this was the best offer. I don’t think it needed to be done this quickly, but subduing the frenzy of JB trade chatter is a silver lining. I can see the flexibility it provides the team going forward. I’m not crazy about this long-term approach, but again, we’ll have to see how it plays out.

It’s gonna be really, really tough to see Jaylen in a Sixers jersey. That being said, I think I’m still going to have a lot of fun watching the Celtics next year. The team is still pretty great, although the ceiling definitely feels lower. Hopefully this opens up more opportunity for the young guys to shine. I’m willing to go into it with an open mind since I don’t want to be sad or mad anymore.

I have the utmost respect for Jaylen Brown, and he’ll be a Celtic for life. Now it’s time to turn the page to a new era of Celtics basketball. Here’s to better days ahead.