Trade Idea: Brown for Fox and Barnes

[Moranis]

No, I would not make this trade. 


The only reason the Celtics should trade Brown is if it is a clear up grade next to Tatum.   This is not it.   Celtics are trading away a better player (even if it is close) in a move that makes the teams backcourt even smaller.

Fox and Brown is debatable as to who is better.  Adding Barnes makes it clearly better for Celtics. 

We need a PG who can utilize Rob Williams better. If James Harden was on the team, Rob Williams would be averaging 20 points a game right now. Watch Nets games.  Fox isn't Harden, but he is a very good passer, and able to penetrate into the middle among the elite.

The only thing debatable about Fox and Brown is how much money they earn. Heck, Fox even wins this handily!

I think Brown is better right now, but Fox was better as a rookie, 2nd year player, 3rd year player, and 4th year player.  So who knows if next year when Fox is in his 5th year if he will be better than Brown is right now.  Thus it is in fact debatable if Fox is (or will be) better than Brown.

Brown was better in his 2nd and 4th years - iffy defence and gaudy raw box stats on poor efficiency don't make you a good player. When you consider how much better Brown is right now compared to Fox it's very unlikely that Fox suddenly makes a 5th year leap to come close to that level. Thus it is in fact not debatable if Fox is (or will be) better than Brown unless you're willing to entertain hypotheticals such as Payton Pritchard turning into a future All-Star

Brown is a better defender at every step of the way, but Fox is right now a better offensive player than Brown was last year.  By a pretty wide margin.  And since offense is more important than defense, I maintain my statement that at every year Fox has been better. 

[Greenblood35]

I remember watching pre-game on ESPN/ABC before the C's played the Pel's, Woj was talking about having talked to several GM's about who they would start a franchise around with the players in this game - i.e. Tatum, Zion, Brown, Ingram, etc. and Woj said that several people he talked to said they would go with Brown.

Back in January, on The Jump, Brian Windhorst (who I know isn't the end all be all), when speaking about Brown, said:

"“He’s on the most improved player ballet, he’s on the All-Star ballet, he’s on the All-NBA Ballet. I gotta be honest with you, there’s only 3-4 players in this league I would trade Jaylen Brown for, and the contract that he signed, while it is a $100 million dollar contract, is well less than the max making the Celtics thrilled that they got him on that deal. He’s arguably one of the most valued dollar for dollar players in the league right now.”

Again, I realize that is one analyst's opinion, and we don't know how many GM's Woj actually spoke to, but I think Brown is highly thought of throughout the league and is viewed as one of the best assets, based on age, skill, development and salary. IMO, I don't think there are too many GM's that would trade Brown for Fox, including our own.

[todd_days_41]

Trade a two-way can-score-from-anywhere wing for a non-shooting point guard?

Pass.

Hmmmmm.

[Indocelts]

Before we even talk about trading Brown, we must trade Kemba first.  All will be useless if Kemba is still our PG.

[footey]

Before we even talk about trading Brown, we must trade Kemba first.  All will be useless if Kemba is still our PG.

Kemba has no trade value.

[Muzzy66]

Yeah, I think I'd do it.

Would take a lot of hard thought, and wouldn't do it for Fox alone..but Fox and Barnes? Yeah.

Fox is arguably on Brown's level on his own.  He's putting up similar scoring numbers but is a far superior playmaker and fits the team need better.  I also really like that Fox gets to the darn FT line (career 36% free throw rate) which [dang] near nobody on the Celtics has done at a decent rate for years now. 

You do lose a bit in the way of outside shooting, but then you make up for that with Barnes (who also adds depth).  Also reduce the impact of Kemba's injury.

Only issue I have is...what do you do with Kemba then?  I don't think Kemba and Fox could co-exist as starters, and I don't think it's fair to bring either off the bench.  Doing this would pretty much be contingent on being able to line up a deal for Kemba too - preferably send him somewhere he's happy to go as well, because he's been a good guy and I think he deserves that.

[Muzzy66]

Before we even talk about trading Brown, we must trade Kemba first.  All will be useless if Kemba is still our PG.

Kemba has no trade value.

In what reality does a 30 year old 4-time All-star point guard who's a good locker room guy and currently averaging 18/5/4 (and securely locked in for 3 years, so no flight risk) have no trade value?

I can understand the argument that his trade value is significantly lower the it would be if he was healthy, but man...even with the injury he still has significant value.

[Muzzy66]

What’s funny is that if the C’s drafted Fox and this thread popped up, we’d be seeing comments like...

“Why are we buying high? Brown is a one-time allstar because of some hot streak early in the season. Why do we want to trade the farm for him again? ”

I'm pretty sure that most of us won't be pumping up a guard who has never hit league average efficiency in his career with good but not great passing when most of his impact is purely from offence as a reason to not trade for an All-Star wing who can play on both ends of the floor without dominating the ball

Without dominating the ball?

Out of Boston's top three players Brown has has:
* The equal highest usage rate (30.2%, tied with Tatum)
* The lowest assist rate (19.5%)
* The highest turnover rate (11.7%)

Those pure objective numbers suggest that there isn't a single player on the Celtics roster who dominates the ball more then Brown does.