Hooray for Optionality!!

[Redz]

Woot woot!

[perks-a-beast]

Woot woot!

That whole press conference was just a word salad of nonsense.

A personal highlight for me was Bill Chisholm saying the Jrue, KP and Jaylen trades were not financially motivated whatsoever. LOL.

[Roy H.]

Woot woot!

That whole press conference was just a word salad of nonsense.

A personal highlight for me was Bill Chisholm saying the Jrue, KP and Jaylen trades were not financially motivated whatsoever. LOL.

Yeah, total basketball trades. 

[Donoghus]

Chisolm looked like a deer in headlights.

[Redz]

Woot woot!

I wonder how many people in the PR office crapped themselves when he uttered the words ?trust the process?.


That whole press conference was just a word salad of nonsense.

A personal highlight for me was Bill Chisholm saying the Jrue, KP and Jaylen trades were not financially motivated whatsoever. LOL.

[soulman]

I still believe in Brad. He showed he can build s championship squad before and he can do it again. Whatever it takes.

[celticinorlando]

Heard Optionality can shoot well from 3 and will rebound. Good defense also.

Brad did not want 5 more years of Brown tied up in big money. Did not like his usage rate and did not like the fact the Cs play your turn, my turn basketball. JB was a blackhole on offense quite a bit.

Think there will be a directive to involve more players this year regularly to develop the depth they want.

Do not mind him being traded. The return was ass tho.

[Roy H.]

I still believe in Brad. He showed he can build s championship squad before and he can do it again. Whatever it takes.

The championship team he "built" already had its #1 and #1A in place.  Now, he needs to find a second Top-15 player.  That's easier said than done.

[Vermont Green]

Who remembers the song?  It was also a hair color jingle or something.

'cause you got personality optionality
Walk, with personality optionality
Talk, with personality optionality
Smile, with personality optionality
Charm, with personality optionality
Love, with personality optionality

[Birdman]

If George can stay healthy, we can be a top 5 East team, I?m more concern bout Tatum than him

[ozgod]

For those who didn't watch the press conference, you can see it here:


https://www.youtube.com/live/XojpffAKWbA?si=-VWq35RwVucjIB9z


The Globe also summarized the main points:

• Stevens began the press conference by thanking Brown for what he?s done for the city of Boston: ?When Jaylen came here as a 19 year old, we knew that he had a lot of talent and a lot of ability to impact people in a lot of different ways, and he certainly did that by inspiring people with his play.
  ?I think ... the thing that certainly always impressed me even more was taking on the responsibility of being a great Boston athlete in the community. He talked all the time about his admiration for Bill Russell, and all that he meant in the community, and Jaylen has done an amazing job, and I?m heartened to know that ? I think we all know ? that he will continue to do stuff here.?
• Stevens on Paul George: ?We like Paul. Paul?s a really good player.?
  Stevens said George came to Boston over the holiday weekend.
  Stevens ended his opening statement by circling back to Brown, whom he continued to compliment: ?We?re not up here to defend ourselves in this decision, which will certainly be scrutinized. We?re OK with that. We?re moreso trying to deal with the emotions of Jaylen not being here.?
• Stevens explicitly said he did not want so much of the Celtics? cap space tied up in two contracts ? Brown and Jayson Tatum?s deals make up about 70 percent of Boston?s cap.
  George?s contract is similar to Brown?s, but with a player option for 2027-28. He will be an unrestricted free agent after that season.
  ?We?re excited about a lot of our young guys,? Stevens said. ?We?re excited about the depth of our group. We?re excited about our very best players. players, and we are, I think, we?ve got a good team, but we think we?ve got a lot of options moving forward.?
• Stevens said Tatum had no say in the situation: ?I don?t ask other guys about other guys. I don?t want to put them in that position.?
• Why would Celtics make a trade with the team that ended their season, a traditional Atlantic Division rival?
  ?The Philly part, I?m with you, that that is a hard thing,? Stevens said. ?To trade a guy that you, first of all, care so much about, but secondly, have so much respect and admiration for, to a team that just beat you in the playoffs, and that you?re going to literally play six times before the playoffs next year with our two preseason games.?
• Stevens said he did not think the deal had to be done after Brown was shopped for Giannis Antetokounmpo. He said they did the deal because they got George and draft picks. The word ?optionality? was used frequently.
  ?It was a really hard call. I?m not saying it was the right call.?
• Chisholm was asked if there was a mandate from the new ownership group to clear money.
  ?No, absolutely not. This is all about, basically, trying to win. Really trusting in our process ? I think that we have the best front office in the NBA.?
  ?... The mandate is to win.?
• Brown said on a livestream over the weekend that he felt the trade came out of left field. Stevens said he and the Celtics brass communicated with Brown and Brown?s agent throughout the process. ?If he feels that way, I?m sorry about that,? Stevens said. ?I genuinely am, because he?s a meaningful person in all of our lives, personally mine.?
• Asked if he regretted anything about the trade rumors involving Brown over the last two weeks, Stevens addressed how fast everything spreads on social media: ?It?s hard to tell what?s a rumor and what?s real unless you?re on the phones. I would say that?s a hard thing to navigate and manage, so you do your best at being upfront before that could possibly happen.?
• Stevens said the Celtics were not disgruntled with the Brown, nor was he disgruntled with the team: ?We all appreciate Jaylen. We?ve all enjoyed having Jaylen as a teammate, I think he?s got great relationships from here.?
• Chisholm pushed back on the team dealing stars crucial to the 2024 title run ? such as Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, and now Brown ? under the new ownership?s watch: ?None of these were about money.?
• Is another move coming in the wake of this deal? ?We?re open, and we?ll be open,? Stevens said. ?I don?t anticipate anything in the very near term. We like the team that we have.?

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/06/sports/brad-stevens-bill-chisholm-celtics-press-conference/

[Phantom255x]

[Celtics4ever]

A personal highlight for me was Bill Chisholm saying the Jrue, KP and Jaylen trades were not financially motivated whatsoever. LOL.

Yep, it was absurd, do you think he believes his own BS?   C'mon gentlemen, those were basketball decisions not financial JK,

[radiohead]

I still believe in Brad. He showed he can build s championship squad before and he can do it again. Whatever it takes.

The championship team he "built" already had its #1 and #1A in place.  Now, he needs to find a second Top-15 player.  That's easier said than done.

I agree Roy. But as Brad said, the Jays were eating up 70% of our cap and that makes it hard to put competitive guys around them to make the team competitive. The past 2 playoffs proved that. When we had the super team, the Jays were at i think 47% of the cap? He was willing to get Giannis because he offered a totally different style than JB. It was a chance he was willing to take but sadly missed.

Why trade JB still? Because he?d be up for another extension, and because Brad saw that it would be hard to win with the Jays with that much money tied between them. He already dropped hints during his end of season presser. We needed more dunks, more rim protection, etc. Giannis would have been that guy. If the right big man comes i think he would flip PG and his expiring contract instantly.

Brad also mentioned that PG having a shorter contract factored into the decision because it would allow them to keep the guys we already have or something like that. I think PP is about get a really nice raise, specially if he plays well this year.

Still, it?s just really sad to see JB go.

[keevsnick]

I came away from that feeling even more strongly that the deal was financially motivated than I did before.

Look, Brown/Tatum were the most expensive duo in the entire NBA. And it is true that its hard to fill out a roster with 2 players making 70% of the cap. I get the reasoning, it still doesn't feel good.

The Celtics basically had two options this summer. 1) Commit to paying two guys 70% of the cap moving forward or 2) Trade Jaylen. They chose option 2.

Now you might say "well they are still paying George nearly as much" and that's true, but you have to look at it like the Holiday/Simons trade. They weren't able to get off ALL Holidays money all at once, because that's hard to do. So instead they swapped him out for a shorter contract in Simons. They did the same here for Brown moving his three year deal (that they would have been pressured to make 5 years with an extension) for a two-year deal. Now that money will be movable as an expiring as soon as next summer.

As a side note with reporting that George turned down his trade kicker that puts the C's at just 1.1 million over the tax. They now have a pretty easy path to getting under it with Delano Banton's 2.8 million dollar unguaranteed contract still on the books. His contract guarantees on 1/10/27 so they don't need to do anything until then. Its very possible they are done for the offseason.