Believing Brown Trade Explanation? + Where Will Brad Stevens & Celtics Go From Here?

Believing Brown Trade Explanation? + Where Will Brad Stevens & Celtics Go From Here?

July 8, 2026



Believing Brown Trade Explanation? + Where Will Brad Stevens & Celtics Go From Here?

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN’s Tim MacMahon to react to Brad Stevens’ press conference responding to the Jaylen Brown trade including how we feel about the rationale they presented.

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View Comments (18)

  2. Sabonis and Malik Monk would have been wayy better.. just add Hauser and you could convince those guys to take paycuts and actually be worth something.. Paul George is a withering asset

  4. He said it had to do with money. The majority owner, however, turned around and said it had nothing to do with money; it was about something else!

  5. So, what were the analytics on Paul George ? Did he add more overall TEAM value than Jaylen Brown ? We need to see what happens in Boston over the next 2-3 seasons. Did Boston believe that the Tatum / Brown / White trio would NOT be enough in the East anymore ?

  6. It’s obvious the Celtics just whiffed on the Giannis trade. Then Brown found it to be the last straw of disrespect and then forced a trade. Celtics hiding something??

  7. The Celtics obviously weren’t going to sh*t on JB in the press conference. They weren’t going to talk about personalities or relationships that went wrong. Why would they do that?

  9. It’s going to COST you draft or player capital to unload PG’s contract at any point the next 2 years …Old Man River is washed up …. Plays less games than Anthony Davis… both made of glass …

  11. It’s not the actual trading of brown. That really sucks, but people can see the reasons. It’s the return that makes this taste so sour.

  12. This will go down in history as one of the worst trades ever! As a lifelong Celtics fan. I'm now rooting against them because of what they did to JB! Absolutely unconscionable… They traded him to a rival in the East and made them so much better and their team so much worse!!! And this is a symptom of the Celtics being owned by straight up money men… 🤮🤮🤮

  13. I don't think this whole "botched goals trade forced their hand" thing is for at all.

    I think the team had two very disappointing seasons, and that the celtics felt the fan as constructed had a ceiling if make magic the ECF at best – which is not celtics mentality.

    I think they felt the team had multiple areas is weakness that needed to be improved, and that they address those while Tatum and Brown were combining for 60%-70% of the cap.

    I also think they had data that suggested that Brown's impact on winning analytically didn't really match up with how much is the cap he was taking up.

    I think they felt that in order for then to get baxk to competing for a title they needed to move Brown and his contract, and that of they see a deal that they felt made them better now and in the future that they would take it.

    Giannis was the best option available in terms of "win now", but the deal would have forced them to sacrifice the future which Brad didn't want to do, so he passed.

    The celtics felt the sixers deal gave them a lot more future potential while allowing them to be just as good or better now, so they made the move.

    I do believe Bread is telling the truth, that if they didn't get am offer that they felt would improve the team's future flexibility while still allowing the top be comprise now, then they would have kept Brown.

  15. The whole thing reflects poorly on Stevens' ability to manage high-stakes relationships. No matter what the capital-t Truth was, he ultimately couldn't talk his owner down from ordering a desperate trade that made the team worse and/or he wasn't confident in mending fences with a disgruntled star long enough to wait for a better trade. It's a please-pay-me move from an executive for what I'm told is a flagship franchise. Sad!

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