{"id":916720,"date":"2026-07-06T16:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/916720\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T16:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:56:16","slug":"nba-executives-react-to-jaylen-brown-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/916720\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Executives React to Jaylen Brown Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celtics<\/strong> fans who are waiting for an explanation of the Jaylen Brown<\/a><\/strong> trade<\/a> should get some answers this afternoon when president of basketball operations Brad Stevens<\/strong> and majority owner Bill Chisholm<\/strong> will hold a press conference, according to Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Twitter link<\/a>). The deal won\u2019t become official until the moratorium ends at 11:00 am Central time, so Stevens and Chisholm have been restricted from making any public comments.<\/p>\n

\"\"In the meantime, Tim MacMahon of ESPN<\/a> talked to several executives around the league to get their perspective on the surprising trade, which sent a second-team All-NBA selection to the Sixers<\/strong> in exchange for Paul George<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s pricey contract, along with two future first-round picks and a pair of second-rounders. The consensus is that Boston rushed into a deal after including Brown in an offer for Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a><\/strong> that proved unsuccessful when the Bucks<\/strong> sent him to Miami instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m surprised they felt so forced to do it right now \u2014 to Philly and for that package!\u201d one general manager told MacMahon. \u201cI\u2019m shocked. I don\u2019t understand it. I can\u2019t figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t make sense of it other than they had to do something. They had to,\u201d a pro personnel scout said. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t bring him back. He wore out his welcome there. But it\u2019s a bad move. It looks bad, too. They panicked and made a bad decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another general manager questioned why the trade market was so depressed for Brown, a five-time All-Star who\u2019s coming off the best statistical season of his career and is still in his prime at age 29. With Jayson Tatum<\/a><\/strong> missing most of the season while recovering from an Achilles injury, Brown proved he could handle the primary scoring role, leading the Celtics to 56 wins and the No. 2 seed in the East.<\/p>\n

It seems out of character for Stevens, who twice has been named Executive of the Year, to rush into a deal with so little obvious return. However, as the negotiating process wore on, it became apparent that many teams weren\u2019t willing to pay a premium price for Brown. One rival executive believes Stevens began the process by asking for too much after his Antetokounmpo bid failed, and as a result, \u201cteams got scared away and moved on to other business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown is undeniably expensive \u2014 he\u2019s owed $183MM over the next three years and becomes extension-eligible later this summer. MacMahon also cites concerns over his \u201cunapologetically strong personality, outspokenness and reluctance to adapt his style of play,\u201d which all contributed to Boston\u2019s decision to move on and were noticed around the league.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Jaylen isn\u2019t happy winning Finals MVP, All-NBA, winning with the Boston Celtics, how\u2019s it going to be with us?\u201d one president of basketball operations said. \u201cIf he\u2019s not happy there, what is he looking for? It scares teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

On top of that, Brown isn\u2019t a favorite among the analytics community, which sees his actual value as far less than his top-line statistics indicate. One general manager suggests that Brown has \u201cthe widest gap in the league\u201d between his public perception and what a deep analytical study actually reveals, and MacMahon points out that the Celtics had a better net rating with Brown off the court during each of the past four seasons and six of the last eight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe credit goes to guys who score, but they\u2019re not always driving team success,\u201d another GM said. \u201cThere\u2019s guys like this all over the league \u2014 Brandon Ingram<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0DeMar DeRozan<\/a><\/strong>, etc. The difference is he\u2019s not at $40 million [salary] \u2014 he\u2019s at $60 million! It\u2019s really hard to tie up that much of your salary cap in one player unless they\u2019re truly generational. And he\u2019s not even close to that. If you super-max Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a><\/strong>] or Joker [Nikola Jokic<\/a><\/strong>], it makes sense. That\u2019s probably the list. The league is getting smarter now. And here\u2019s the thing: The dumb teams are also the cheap teams, so the Celtics couldn\u2019t take advantage of one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the mysteries surrounding Boston\u2019s offseason is why Stevens wasn\u2019t willing to increase his trade offer to Milwaukee if he knew Brown was going to be moved regardless. Reports have indicated that the Bucks were asking for Baylor Scheierman<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Hugo Gonzalez<\/a><\/strong> in addition to Brown and draft picks, but Stevens didn\u2019t want to part with the young, low-cost players.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIf you knew you were going to trade him, why not go all-in for Giannis?\u201d one of the GMs asked. \u201cIt was still a hard decision for Milwaukee. If you knew you had to get rid of him and you were in the final two, why not put in a bit more?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtics fans who are waiting for an explanation of the Jaylen Brown trade should get some answers this…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":916721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[40481,26959,3368,40482,14562,3525,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-916720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-baylor-scheierman","tag-brad-stevens","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-hugo-gonzalez","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-paul-george","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116874091316070601","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}