Tracy McGrady says fans who want to ship Jaylen out are crazy.
Seven-time NBA all-star Tracy McGrady thinks the Celtics should keep Jaylen Brown long-term, despite his struggles in this year’s playoffs.
Brown and Jayson Tatum are too good of a duo to break up, McGrady said during an appearance on Showtime Basketball’s “What’s Burnin.”
“You don’t dismantle that. I’m sorry. Hell yeah, you keep that. They’re 25 and 26 year olds,” McGrady said. “Why would you get rid of that? I don’t understand. Why would you get rid of two guys who played for an NBA championship, went to four Eastern Conference Finals. At some point these guys are going to raise a banner.”
McGrady offered some criticism of Boston fans who think Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla should be fired and that Brown should be traded.
“That’s Boston,” McGrady said. “If they’re not hanging banners, everybody needs to be fired. They want to trade Jaylen Brown, they want to do all this stuff, they’re crazy. There’s no way I’m getting rid of Jaylen Brown.”
McGrady pointed to older stars leaving the league as a big part of why the Celtics should keep Brown and Tatum.
“Lebron is on his way out,” McGrady said. “Steph is getting older. KD and those guys are getting older. These guys are 25 and 26 years old. You’re not going to find a better duo than these two.”
https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-celtics/2023/06/02/tracy-mcgrady-celtics-fans-who-want-to-trade-jaylen-brown-are-crazy/
Are we as fans overreacting to a bad game and series? Or are we confident we can find another All-NBA/All-Star player that has less of Jaylen's flaws pretty easily once we get rid of him?
It depends on the trade package. If it improves the team, you do it. If makes the team worse, you do not.
There is no need to get rid of Jaylen. He is not a negative asset. He is a positive contributor to the team. If there is no good trade to be made, give him his extension and keep him.
For some it is just an over-reaction to a bad series. Sadness and anger run rampant as they tend to do after a major letdown. But for many others it is not.
I do not view these trade discussions as an over-reaction to a bad series. That is too simple a take. But more as part of a continuing discussion about Jaylen's flaws and actual on-court value. Also, about whether Jaylen and Tatum are the best fit for one another. They fit well enough as seen by the team's success but can they, and in particular Tatum, do better with a different running mate who may suit their skill-set better.
Jaylen should not be discarded easily but he also should not be untouchable. He is a very good player. Whether he is top 20 or in the 20-30 range, he is highly valuable. Although I do think, even if he is in that 17-20 range, that Jaylen is more comparable to the talent at the back end of the top 30 (26-30) than he is to the 10-14 range talent wise.
I agree with your post and I'll add that he is All-NBA so you can arguably make him top-15, so he's closer to 10-14 range than 26-30 range.
I'm sorry but you give subjective reasons for why Jaylen Brown should be regarded as a big star (15-20 range).
First you say that there's an overreaction by fans after one bad series when the talking heads agreed that Tatum/Brown is the best duo in the NBA. That first part was countered by Who. But the second part doesn't have much merit at all.
Just because the talking heads agree on something doesn't make it true. What's generally happening people want to attribute team success to individuals as that's easier to process and market. That's not bad, but if that's done superfluously you get biased information. A lot of questions don't get answered. How much contribution goes to Tatum and how much to Brown? How much do supporting players and coaching have an impact?
And I have never accepted the assumption that Tatum/Brown is the best duo in the NBA. And that narrative can easily shift without any change in performances of these guys. Look at the MVP award for Embiid. In comparison to last year almost nothing changed to differentiate from Jokic to Embiid as the deserving winner. But it happened for non-basketball reasons.
With Middleton back for the Bucks, Denver on the role with their established starting five and Phoenix with a new coach those teams could set excellent regular season records next year. And then they'll talk about Holiday/Middleton/Antetokounmpo, Murray/Jokic and Booker/Durant.
You come with accolades which I already mentioned is a lot about narratives. The Celtics have made the Conference Finals 5 out of the last 7 times. So it's a team that's being talked about a lot and the players become familiar faces. Even though I'm open for trading Smart I've always liked his defensive intensity, but he'd never have won DPOY on another team (that's speculating, but if you think of it I think most would agree).
And to me voting Brown on All NBA 2nd team is ludicrous. There was no minimum percentage of played games yet. So if we take everyone in consideration that played more than half of the games then I have a whole list of players who beat Brown in basic every statistical category.
Here it goes: Davis, Haliburton (that's a guy who's overlooked because of lack of team success), Durant, Morant, Harden, Leonard, Porzingis, Booker, Irving, Markkanen, Young, Brunson, Siakam, Fox, Holiday, DeRozan. Combine these 16 players with the 14 All NBA guys and I have 30 players who had a better season than Brown this year.
A huge positive aspect to Brown is his position as two-way wings who can defend multiple positions are very scarce. A few years ago we had a lack of high quality centers and as a result DeAndre Jordan, Al Jefferson and Andre Drummond made All NBA teams.
For us it gives a position of strength in negotations as there are few (if any) other similar guys available on the market. That's why I believe we could seize another All Star (or projected to) despite Brown being an expiring contract. And to me that's an easy decision to make, since paying a player a supermax who in my opinion is not a top 30 player would be devastating for our financial opportunity costs in the future.
Oh, last thing, if you take that argument and say well we can sign a supermax and trade him later because the market for two-way wings is fantastic, take into consideration if teams would want to trade for a player who's on a $60M a year contract who's not a first option on a contender. Would we have any interest in for example good players like Young, Fox, Ingram or Adebayo if they made $60M a year?
