Jaylen Traded to PHI for PG, 2 First Round Picks & 2 Second Round Picks

[LilRip]

Saw this on yahoo where 2 teams wanted Brown

1. Charlotte offer Bridges, Reid & picks for Brown but Stevens wanted Miller & 4 picks. Charlotte said no

2. Brown wanted Denver so they offer Johnson & Gordon but Celtics wanted Murray

Think I would took either deal

While whether those packages are better than the PG + 1.5 firsts + 2 seconds is debatable, when I think about it, I am still honestly stumped why we needed to make the trade NOW. I still cannot reconcile the urgency.

I can make peace with FO thinking that JB needed to go, that he was not as impactful as the media made him out to be, that giving him the max extension would have tied the team up with no clear path for improvement in the next 5 years. I can get behind that. But I would be surprised if there was another team scrambling to get PG and therefore could Brad not have negotiated harder?

I honestly think if we got PG + 3 firsts, that would have been enough of a home run deal. 

[Celtics2021]

Saw this on yahoo where 2 teams wanted Brown

1. Charlotte offer Bridges, Reid & picks for Brown but Stevens wanted Miller & 4 picks. Charlotte said no

2. Brown wanted Denver so they offer Johnson & Gordon but Celtics wanted Murray

Think I would took either deal

I would prefer the deal we have to either.  Bridges is a trash human being.  Gordon is breaking down fast, and there are no picks.  Also, deal two seems highly suspect, as the Nuggets would have had to reduce their payroll by about $23 million to fit it under the first apron that they would be capped at.  They could not make that deal without a lot of other moves.

[Roy H.]

Saw this on yahoo where 2 teams wanted Brown

1. Charlotte offer Bridges, Reid & picks for Brown but Stevens wanted Miller & 4 picks. Charlotte said no

2. Brown wanted Denver so they offer Johnson & Gordon but Celtics wanted Murray

Think I would took either deal

I would prefer the deal we have to either.  Bridges is a trash human being.  Gordon is breaking down fast, and there are no picks.  Also, deal two seems highly suspect, as the Nuggets would have had to reduce their payroll by about $23 million to fit it under the first apron that they would be capped at.  They could not make that deal without a lot of other moves.

To me it depends on what picks Charlotte was offering.  If they were offering two unprotected #1s I would have done it, and tried to flip Bridges (like in PHX deal).

Queta / Mitchell / Garza
Reid
Tatum / Hauser / O'Neal
White / Scheierman/ Hugo
Allen / Pritchard

That's a way better team, a way younger team, a more flexible team, and we'd likely have two unprotected Charlotte picks and an unprotected 2033 PHX #1.

Ball dropped.

Also, interesting that one of JB's former coaches clearly wanted him back.

[RodyTur10]

I'm glad all the drama has come down a bit. I understand emotional reactions when a foundational player, who was here for 10 years, gets traded for a package that the majority finds to be inadequate.

But we still have a very talented team that won 56 games this season. And we basically have replaced Brown and Vucevic for a recovered Tatum, George and Robinson. In my book this means we'll be better. Even if the East may be stronger too. The Celtics are 4th with the bookmakers in Championship odds and that means we're a contender, although not a favorite.

Through the years we have experienced some cutthroat actons with team favorites and (former) All Stars. The last 13 years among others Pierce, Garnett, Rondo, Thomas, Smart, Williams, Porzingis and Holiday come to mind. Lots of criticism and truly felt pain almost every time.

Nonetheless, in hindsight almost every trade turned out to be the right call. The Celtics survived or made quick progress. In my opinion the Celtics management deserves the benefit of the doubt, in particular Brad Stevens.

[jambr380]

Saw this on yahoo where 2 teams wanted Brown

1. Charlotte offer Bridges, Reid & picks for Brown but Stevens wanted Miller & 4 picks. Charlotte said no

2. Brown wanted Denver so they offer Johnson & Gordon but Celtics wanted Murray

Think I would took either deal

I would prefer the deal we have to either.  Bridges is a trash human being.  Gordon is breaking down fast, and there are no picks.  Also, deal two seems highly suspect, as the Nuggets would have had to reduce their payroll by about $23 million to fit it under the first apron that they would be capped at.  They could not make that deal without a lot of other moves.

I guess everybody missed where I laid out this trade two pages ago. The thing nobody is mentioning is that Bridges was traded for a 2033 1st, Grayson Allen, and Royce O'Neale.

So if you assume Charlotte would have given up two 1sts, and not the 3 or 4 that Brad wanted, that leaves you with a net trade of: Naz Reid, Grayson Allen, Royce O'Neale, 3 1sts, perhaps a swap or a couple of 2nds, and you save around $7M in cap space.

That sounds to me like a much better deal than what we got. As I've been saying, I think Brad actually really values Paul George the player and that's why he went with a seemingly worse deal.

[Roy H.]

Saw this on yahoo where 2 teams wanted Brown

1. Charlotte offer Bridges, Reid & picks for Brown but Stevens wanted Miller & 4 picks. Charlotte said no

2. Brown wanted Denver so they offer Johnson & Gordon but Celtics wanted Murray

Think I would took either deal

I would prefer the deal we have to either.  Bridges is a trash human being.  Gordon is breaking down fast, and there are no picks.  Also, deal two seems highly suspect, as the Nuggets would have had to reduce their payroll by about $23 million to fit it under the first apron that they would be capped at.  They could not make that deal without a lot of other moves.

I guess everybody missed where I laid out this trade two pages ago. The thing nobody is mentioning is that Bridges was traded for a 2033 1st, Grayson Allen, and Royce O'Neale.

So if you assume Charlotte would have given up two 1sts, and not the 3 or 4 that Brad wanted, that leaves you with a net trade of: Naz Reid, Grayson Allen, Royce O'Neale, 3 1sts, perhaps a swap or a couple of 2nds, and you save around $7M in cap space.

That sounds to me like a much better deal than what we got. As I've been saying, I think Brad actually really values Paul George the player and that's why he went with a seemingly worse deal.

I said the exact same thing above.  That scenario is much better for us.

And the idea above that Reid and Mitchell would be redundant is off base.  Their games would have been very complementary.

[SparzWizard]

Saw this on yahoo where 2 teams wanted Brown

1. Charlotte offer Bridges, Reid & picks for Brown but Stevens wanted Miller & 4 picks. Charlotte said no

2. Brown wanted Denver so they offer Johnson & Gordon but Celtics wanted Murray

Think I would took either deal

I would prefer the deal we have to either.  Bridges is a trash human being.  Gordon is breaking down fast, and there are no picks.  Also, deal two seems highly suspect, as the Nuggets would have had to reduce their payroll by about $23 million to fit it under the first apron that they would be capped at.  They could not make that deal without a lot of other moves.

I guess everybody missed where I laid out this trade two pages ago. The thing nobody is mentioning is that Bridges was traded for a 2033 1st, Grayson Allen, and Royce O'Neale.

So if you assume Charlotte would have given up two 1sts, and not the 3 or 4 that Brad wanted, that leaves you with a net trade of: Naz Reid, Grayson Allen, Royce O'Neale, 3 1sts, perhaps a swap or a couple of 2nds, and you save around $7M in cap space.

That sounds to me like a much better deal than what we got. As I've been saying, I think Brad actually really values Paul George the player and that's why he went with a seemingly worse deal.

Sounds like Nico Harrison valuing AD more than Luka 

[Celtics2021]

Saw this on yahoo where 2 teams wanted Brown

1. Charlotte offer Bridges, Reid & picks for Brown but Stevens wanted Miller & 4 picks. Charlotte said no

2. Brown wanted Denver so they offer Johnson & Gordon but Celtics wanted Murray

Think I would took either deal

I would prefer the deal we have to either.  Bridges is a trash human being.  Gordon is breaking down fast, and there are no picks.  Also, deal two seems highly suspect, as the Nuggets would have had to reduce their payroll by about $23 million to fit it under the first apron that they would be capped at.  They could not make that deal without a lot of other moves.

I guess everybody missed where I laid out this trade two pages ago. The thing nobody is mentioning is that Bridges was traded for a 2033 1st, Grayson Allen, and Royce O'Neale.

So if you assume Charlotte would have given up two 1sts, and not the 3 or 4 that Brad wanted, that leaves you with a net trade of: Naz Reid, Grayson Allen, Royce O'Neale, 3 1sts, perhaps a swap or a couple of 2nds, and you save around $7M in cap space.

That sounds to me like a much better deal than what we got. As I've been saying, I think Brad actually really values Paul George the player and that's why he went with a seemingly worse deal.

I am confused about your trade math in terms of the numbers of 1sts we would get based on the Charlotte-Phoenix trade.

[Kernewek]

I'm glad all the drama has come down a bit. I understand emotional reactions when a foundational player, who was here for 10 years, gets traded for a package that the majority finds to be inadequate.

But we still have a very talented team that won 56 games this season. And we basically have replaced Brown and Vucevic for a recovered Tatum, George and Robinson. In my book this means we'll be better. Even if the East may be stronger too. The Celtics are 4th with the bookmakers in Championship odds and that means we're a contender, although not a favorite.

Through the years we have experienced some cutthroat actons with team favorites and (former) All Stars. The last 13 years among others Pierce, Garnett, Rondo, Thomas, Smart, Williams, Porzingis and Holiday come to mind. Lots of criticism and truly felt pain almost every time.

Nonetheless, in hindsight almost every trade turned out to be the right call. The Celtics survived or made quick progress. In my opinion the Celtics management deserves the benefit of the doubt, in particular Brad Stevens.

Agreed, but we have a whole offseason to gnash our teeth about it, so might as well gnash away,

[keevsnick]

I want to start this analysis by saying I think Brown is a better player than Paul George and I do not think the team is better for this trade.  But Paul George did have more of a positive impact on his teammates than Brown.  On PHI last season, Embiid had the biggest +/- impact of all their players.  Not a big surprise.  And Embiid is the only one that had a lower +/- per36 with George over without George.  All the other main rotation players were better, a few quite a bit better, when playing with Paul George.

I don't know what this means.  I did not see enough PHI games to have eye test data to go along with this.  What I saw in the playoff series vs. BOS, Paul George played very well.  He made some big shots, but not as the #1 scoring option.

I think there is where BOS will miss Brown.  Paul George on the floor with Tatum should be a productive, efficient combination.  But when Tatum sits, BOS won't have Brown to take over the lead scoring option role.  I don't think George can be that either at this point in his career.  It will be interesting to see how this looks when Tatum rests now that Brown is gone.

The fact that he misses about 40% of his games needs to be factored in as well, no?  It's hard to positively impact your teammates when you were sitting on the bench, or are not in the arena at all..

Jaylen won games.  In fact, he won more games last year than Paul George played.

If we care more about the postseason than the regular season (and I thought we did hence all the criticism of JB for his favorite season comments) then it is fair to note that he played in all 11 Sixer playoff games and averaged 36 minutes a night.

Is there a reason to expect that he'll repeat that going forward? 

Games played last seven seasons:  48, 54, 31, 56, 74 , 41, 37

Honestly I think anything PG gives the Celtics as a player next year is a bonus. The primary reason he's in this trade is as a giant salary place holder.

The Celtics knew that they were going to be below the tax next year and that they weren't really going to be competing for the title, so they turned JB into some assets and a giant expiring contract that they can flip in summer 2027 rather than risk an injury or decline in play that would have made him unmovable.

If PG finishes his contract on the Celtics it will be essentially a disaster. The idea is to turn him into A) Another star that fits better next to Tatum or B) Multiple high level role players in the summer of 2027.

By punting another season, that's another year of Tatum's gone and one more year of decline from D. White.  And that's assuming that you can find a team that wants to trade it's superstar, and is willing to take back the $60 million husk of Paul George as part of the trade.

Who do you foresee becoming available that would help the team more than JB?

I didn't say it was a good plan, or even one I agree with. Personally I would have rolled with JB. But I can't imagine Brad is relying on PG to actually be available and good net year at age 36. That would be insane. And really their chances of competing next year were always low as long as getting under the tax was a mandate. The two EC finalists last year both spent up to the 2nd apron, being under the tax is a huge hinderance, but that's what they're doing.

[Who]

Saw this on yahoo where 2 teams wanted Brown

1. Charlotte offer Bridges, Reid & picks for Brown but Stevens wanted Miller & 4 picks. Charlotte said no

2. Brown wanted Denver so they offer Johnson & Gordon but Celtics wanted Murray

Think I would took either deal

I would prefer the deal we have to either.  Bridges is a trash human being.  Gordon is breaking down fast, and there are no picks.  Also, deal two seems highly suspect, as the Nuggets would have had to reduce their payroll by about $23 million to fit it under the first apron that they would be capped at.  They could not make that deal without a lot of other moves.

I guess everybody missed where I laid out this trade two pages ago. The thing nobody is mentioning is that Bridges was traded for a 2033 1st, Grayson Allen, and Royce O'Neale.

So if you assume Charlotte would have given up two 1sts, and not the 3 or 4 that Brad wanted, that leaves you with a net trade of: Naz Reid, Grayson Allen, Royce O'Neale, 3 1sts, perhaps a swap or a couple of 2nds, and you save around $7M in cap space.

That sounds to me like a much better deal than what we got. As I've been saying, I think Brad actually really values Paul George the player and that's why he went with a seemingly worse deal.

Grayson Allen would have been awesome. He could slot in as a starting SG right away. Keep Pritchard in that super-sub role. Naz Reid would be the replacement starting forward for Jaylen with Tatum shifting down to SF. Royce O'Neale our best bench forward.

G: D White, Pritchard
G: Grayson Allen, Hauser, Baylor
F: Tatum, R O'Neale, Hugo
F: Naz Reid, (Tatum), J Walsh
C: Queta, M Robinson

Man, look at all that shooting one the wings with Grayson Allen, Hauser & R O'Neale. To go along with D White and Pritchard. Plus Naz Reid. Shot makers all over the to place around Tatum. The only guys who can't shoot are Queta & Mitchell Robinson.

Can you imagine that lethal that offense would be?

That could be the best shooting team in the entire NBA.

------------

All our young wings become 3rd stringers. 13 playable NBA players. No more 4-5 wasted bench spots on long term projects who can be trusted to play.

Man, you can even go to a 5 out offense with Naz at center if you are really struggling to score. I expect 90+% of his playing time to come at PF so I don't see any overlap with Queta / M Robinson. But it is nice to have that option of an offensive orientated center over those 2 garbage men centers on nights where we are struggling.

[Roy H.]

I'm glad all the drama has come down a bit. I understand emotional reactions when a foundational player, who was here for 10 years, gets traded for a package that the majority finds to be inadequate.

But we still have a very talented team that won 56 games this season. And we basically have replaced Brown and Vucevic for a recovered Tatum, George and Robinson. In my book this means we'll be better. Even if the East may be stronger too. The Celtics are 4th with the bookmakers in Championship odds and that means we're a contender, although not a favorite.

Through the years we have experienced some cutthroat actons with team favorites and (former) All Stars. The last 13 years among others Pierce, Garnett, Rondo, Thomas, Smart, Williams, Porzingis and Holiday come to mind. Lots of criticism and truly felt pain almost every time.

Nonetheless, in hindsight almost every trade turned out to be the right call. The Celtics survived or made quick progress. In my opinion the Celtics management deserves the benefit of the doubt, in particular Brad Stevens.

Agreed, but we have a whole offseason to gnash our teeth about it, so might as well gnash away,

I think "In ________ we trust" is generally a pretty scary form of passivity and/or cognitive dissonance.  Putting your blind faith in anybody is pretty asinine.  It's particularly popular in politics, but there's plenty of it in sports.  The idea that management is always right should make anybody cringe.

[Roy H.]

Saw this on yahoo where 2 teams wanted Brown

1. Charlotte offer Bridges, Reid & picks for Brown but Stevens wanted Miller & 4 picks. Charlotte said no

2. Brown wanted Denver so they offer Johnson & Gordon but Celtics wanted Murray

Think I would took either deal

I would prefer the deal we have to either.  Bridges is a trash human being.  Gordon is breaking down fast, and there are no picks.  Also, deal two seems highly suspect, as the Nuggets would have had to reduce their payroll by about $23 million to fit it under the first apron that they would be capped at.  They could not make that deal without a lot of other moves.

I guess everybody missed where I laid out this trade two pages ago. The thing nobody is mentioning is that Bridges was traded for a 2033 1st, Grayson Allen, and Royce O'Neale.

So if you assume Charlotte would have given up two 1sts, and not the 3 or 4 that Brad wanted, that leaves you with a net trade of: Naz Reid, Grayson Allen, Royce O'Neale, 3 1sts, perhaps a swap or a couple of 2nds, and you save around $7M in cap space.

That sounds to me like a much better deal than what we got. As I've been saying, I think Brad actually really values Paul George the player and that's why he went with a seemingly worse deal.

Grayson Allen would have been awesome. He could slot in as a starting SG right away. Keep Pritchard in that super-sub role. Naz Reid would be the replacement starting forward for Jaylen with Tatum shifting down to SF. Royce O'Neale our best bench forward.

G: D White, Pritchard
G: Grayson Allen, Hauser, Baylor
F: Tatum, R O'Neale, Hugo
F: Naz Reid, (Tatum), J Walsh
C: Queta, M Robinson

Man, look at all that shooting one the wings with Grayson Allen, Hauser & R O'Neale. To go along with D White and Pritchard. Plus Naz Reid. Shot makers all over the to place around Tatum. The only guys who can't shoot are Queta & Mitchell Robinson.

Can you imagine that lethal that offense would be? That could be the best shooting team in the entire NBA.

All our young wings become 3rd stringers. 13 playable NBA players. No more 4-5 wasted bench spots on long term projects who can be trusted to play.

... and we'd have additional salary cap space to supplement if necessary, and 2 or 3 #1s (including a 2033 PHX #1).

[SparzWizard]

I'm glad all the drama has come down a bit. I understand emotional reactions when a foundational player, who was here for 10 years, gets traded for a package that the majority finds to be inadequate.

But we still have a very talented team that won 56 games this season. And we basically have replaced Brown and Vucevic for a recovered Tatum, George and Robinson. In my book this means we'll be better. Even if the East may be stronger too. The Celtics are 4th with the bookmakers in Championship odds and that means we're a contender, although not a favorite.

Through the years we have experienced some cutthroat actons with team favorites and (former) All Stars. The last 13 years among others Pierce, Garnett, Rondo, Thomas, Smart, Williams, Porzingis and Holiday come to mind. Lots of criticism and truly felt pain almost every time.

Nonetheless, in hindsight almost every trade turned out to be the right call. The Celtics survived or made quick progress. In my opinion the Celtics management deserves the benefit of the doubt, in particular Brad Stevens.

But this time it's different. This is under Bill Chisholm and private equity group and not under Wyc. Bill made the final call to get rid of Brown (though I wish we had gotten something better) for money reasons

[No Nickname]

I want to start this analysis by saying I think Brown is a better player than Paul George and I do not think the team is better for this trade.  But Paul George did have more of a positive impact on his teammates than Brown.  On PHI last season, Embiid had the biggest +/- impact of all their players.  Not a big surprise.  And Embiid is the only one that had a lower +/- per36 with George over without George.  All the other main rotation players were better, a few quite a bit better, when playing with Paul George.

I don't know what this means.  I did not see enough PHI games to have eye test data to go along with this.  What I saw in the playoff series vs. BOS, Paul George played very well.  He made some big shots, but not as the #1 scoring option.

I think there is where BOS will miss Brown.  Paul George on the floor with Tatum should be a productive, efficient combination.  But when Tatum sits, BOS won't have Brown to take over the lead scoring option role.  I don't think George can be that either at this point in his career.  It will be interesting to see how this looks when Tatum rests now that Brown is gone.

The fact that he misses about 40% of his games needs to be factored in as well, no?  It's hard to positively impact your teammates when you were sitting on the bench, or are not in the arena at all..

Jaylen won games.  In fact, he won more games last year than Paul George played.

If we care more about the postseason than the regular season (and I thought we did hence all the criticism of JB for his favorite season comments) then it is fair to note that he played in all 11 Sixer playoff games and averaged 36 minutes a night.

Is there a reason to expect that he'll repeat that going forward? 

Games played last seven seasons:  48, 54, 31, 56, 74 , 41, 37

I was curious what his availability metrics would look like if we included playoff games.

But I also think his drug suspension is an outlier and we can't really hold that against him when it comes whether he was healthy enough to play.

So for argument's sake let's assume that Paul's drug suspension did not occur and he played in 18 of those 25 games (as he might have been nicked up for some of those, or was load-managed).   

What would his numbers look like then?  I'm not doing this to argue that he's not a risk in terms of his availability compared to Jaylen.  It's obvious that Jaylen is superior here.

But playoff games might help a bit...

Paul George Availability (Last 7 Seasons)
(Assuming he played 18 of the 25 games he missed due to suspension)

Season      Adj. RS GP   RS Avail.   PO GP   Team PO GP   Total GP   Total Possible   Overall Avail.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2019-20         48         58.5%       13        13          61            95             64.2%
2020-21         54         65.9%       19        19          73           101             72.3%
2021-22         31         37.8%         0         0          31            82              37.8%
2022-23         56         68.3%         0         5          56            87              64.4%
2023-24         74         90.2%         6         6          80            88              90.9%
2024-25         41         50.0%         0         0          41            82              50.0%
2025-26         55*        67.1%       11       11          66            93              71.0%

*Actual regular season games played: 37
 Adjusted to 55 by adding back 18 suspended games.

Seven-Year Totals
----------------
Adjusted Regular Season: 359 / 574 = 62.5%

Playoffs:                49 / 54 = 90.7%

Combined:               408 / 628 = 65.0%


Looking at that, I wanted to find a player of good stature who was a wing (not a PG or Center) and see how they compared.  So I came upon Jimmy Butler, who is also 36, but has the reputation of being a warrior. 

But, and a big but, I excluded Butler's 2025-26 season where he tore his ACL.  I used his seven seasons prior to that.  It's a bit of cherry-picking, but I wanted to see how we might have looked at Butler's availability (regular season and playoffs) compared to Paul George-- before Butler got hurt last year-- if this trade took place last season and we got Jimmy Butler instead.

Would we have been as upset because of the player's "availability?"

Paul George vs. Jimmy Butler
7-Season Comparison

                         Paul George*      Jimmy Butler**
------------------------------------------------------------
Regular Season GP             359               401
Possible RS Games             574               565***
RS Availability                   62.5%           71.0%

Playoff GP                           49                92
Team Playoff Games            54               100
Playoff Availability         90.7%             92.0%

Combined GP                   :408               493
Combined Possible            628               665
Overall Availability         65.0%         74.1%

*Paul George receives credit for 18 suspended games.
**Jimmy Butler uses his seven seasons BEFORE 2025-26.
***Includes the 2019-20 (73-game) and 2020-21 (72-game) shortened seasons.

That's a difference of 8.5 percentage points, or roughly 7 additional games per 82-game season on average.

But when it comes to the playoffs, they have only a 1.3% differential. 

So in a non-drug-suspension, non-Butler-ACL-tear season, we might expect this:

Regular Season:

Paul George: 51 games played
Jimmy Butler: 58 games played

Playoffs:
Both at nine out of 10 games.

So I ask again, would we have been as upset if we traded Jaylen Brown for a pre-ACL injury Jimmy Butler, and 1.5 1st round picks?

Maybe the answer is yes.  I'm curious what others think.