The old saying about giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish applies to basketball too. At least to the Celtics right now.
(I know, two fish-related openings in a row? This space is now Osprey-friendly.)
With Kyrie Irving unsurprisingly napalming another NBA franchise, speculation has turned to what might happen to the one player on the Nets who actually can impact a championship.
Kevin Durant has remained mostly silent throughout this process. Who knows what’s going through his head, but I have to imagine it’s a bit of a record-scratch “you might be wondering how I got here” stuff going on. He left Golden State and hitched his wagon to Irving (and later James Harden) only to watch Irving choose to miss dozens of games, anger Harden to the point of trade request, and then, after the Warriors won a championship, enter a contractual stalemate that culminates today in permission to seek sign-and-trade destinations.
Durant’s basketball world has blown up around him. The friend who lured him to Brooklyn in the first place pissed off one of his star teammates and is now likely on the way out himself. Durant has two choices now: try to will whatever pieces remain in the aftermath into a contender, or strike the final blow and send the Nets into a full rebuild.
Should he choose to follow Irving out the door, there will be plenty of suitors waiting for him. Durant trades are testing the bandwidth of online trade machines as we speak, with many suggesting Durant follow his old script of joining the team that beat him on the way to a disappointing Finals loss.
The Celtics, on the surface, seem like a perfect trade partner. Jaylen Brown is one of the league’s bright, young stars who, at 25 years old, would be a wonderful haul to minimize the time Brooklyn would need to fill the crater left by this past season. Boston, the argument has already gone, would get one of the top players of all time, a pantheon-level megastar who would team with a first-team All-NBA player to likely make Boston the favorites in the East.
That's enticing. That's a big fish ready to be served up and feeds everyone in town.
And Boston shouldn’t do it, because teaching these young Celtics how to win a championship is a better, more fruitful path.
The comeuppance of Durant watching the team he left win a championship only slightly dulls the sting of the Celtics' loss to the Warriors. Brown, Jayson Tatum, and their teammates learned hard, career-changing lessons in that series. They were shown by a seasoned team of veterans with rings what it takes to actually pop champagne.
Life is full of tough lessons for guys in their mid-20s. This is when they generally get fired or dumped or served with final notices for loans about to head into default. The age of 25 is a bit of a turning point for a lot of people when they realize a certain segment of their youth is gone, and a bit of adulthood is waiting to be grasped.
This is no different for Brown and Tatum, who now must face the true reality of what being pillars of this franchise is about. This teachable moment of how to fish, so to speak, puts Tatum and Brown in a unique position, and I’m not willing to miss out on the bounty of what could come.
I get what trading Brown for Durant would do for this franchise, but I don’t think this is what Boston truly wants.
This is a move that Sacramento would make, because they are desperate to hang anything above a “good job, good effort” banner.
This a move the Lakers would make, because they print “get out of jail free” cards by virtue of their location. If Durant, at 34, only has a couple of peak years left, so be it. They’ll find someone else willing to force a trade their way.
Boston, though, is looking for sustained excellence. Could the Celtics win a championship, maybe two, with Durant in town? Sure. But I think they can do the same with Tatum and Brown together, and I think they have a chance for more if they do things right. Does it feel like as sure a thing as a Durant/Tatum combo? No, not quite. I admit that my belief in the internal improvement of Brown and Tatum as players fuels this feeling, but I do believe in it.
The fact is that at 25 and 24, Brown and Tatum still haven't shown us their best basketball. Their bodies still haven't reached their physical peak. Their minds have only just felt the searing burn of real loss. They have levels, plural, still left to reach.
I’ll set aside the argument for now that a theoretical Brown/Durant trade still requires at least $8 million in salary from Boston, adding to an already steep bill. I let this argument stand on its own.
25-year-old Jaylen Brown shouldn’t be traded for 34-year-old Kevin Durant. Durant is easily the better player as I type, but I fear his slight frame and history of injury leads him down a path where his next major injury could be his last. I’m afraid that the tail end of his career matches up too closely with the tail end of Tatum’s contract, which he can opt out of when new TV money hits and gives the entire NBA money to spend. I’m afraid the white-hot allure of a championship now could cause this star to collapse in on itself in short order.
What Boston has right now is pieces they know work together, with avenues to help support the pillars in place. And while one trip to the Finals very obviously does not guarantee future trips, Boston is uniquely positioned to rack up frequent flier miles in many Junes to follow.
I know who Durant is. I know what he’s capable of. But I also know his time is almost up while Brown’s is just beginning. Trading Brown away now puts too much, for too long, at risk.
The Celtics are close to becoming a version of the team they just beat. They just need to keep a steady hand and see this thing through.
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If you’d like to hear more arguments for why the Celtics should keep Brown in this scenario, check out today’s Locked On Celtics podcast, on YouTube below or wherever you get podcasts.