Yeah, I know. I was one of the people telling you to calm down about Paul George. That was twelve days ago. I was wrong.
Jaylen Brown. 2024 NBA Finals MVP. Ten years a Celtic. 28.7 points a game last season, sixth in MVP voting. Traded to Philadelphia for a 36-year-old who hasn’t been All-NBA since 2021, served a 25-game drug suspension last season, and is owed $54.1 million a year for two more years.
Anonymous GMs are calling it “baffling.” ESPN gave Boston a D+. The Ringer called it “one of the most unnecessary transactions in recent NBA history.”
Brown went on Twitch afterward. Said his key card got rejected at the facility. Said he just wanted to see if it was real.
Jaylen Brown's statement after being traded from the Boston Celtics to the Philadelphia 76ers:
First and foremost, thank you to the Most High, even in the midst of adversity. I'm here with gratitude.
I’m still processing how this all went down. I’m excited and disappointed at…
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 2, 2026
That image is going to live in my head for a while.
Here’s the analytical case against this, stripped of emotion: Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were the best two-way wing duo in the league. They won a championship together. The 2025-26 Brown (28.7, 6.9, 5.1 in 71 games) was the best version of him we’ve ever seen. Paul George at 36, coming off two injury-plagued seasons in Philly, is not a comparable running mate.
The picks — a 2028 first (convertible swap), a 2031 unprotected first, two seconds — would need to turn into another Brown-Tatum haul to justify this. The 2013 Pierce-KG trade gave Boston the picks that became Tatum and Brown. Now Brown himself is the teardown asset. That’s the full circle, and it’s brutal.
He wrote in his statement: “I’m excited and disappointed at the same time.” Then: “To the people of Boston, thank you.”
I don’t know what the Celtics are now. Paul George, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Mitchell Robinson, Mike Conley Jr. That’s a team that might win 47 games and lose in the second round.
We traded the Finals MVP for that.
