I can't be the only person who's feeling like he's been living in a bizarro world this week, as the Boston Celtics appear to be hell-bent on trading away Jaylen Brown.
When the returning piece was Giannis Antetokounmpo? Fine. I get it. He's not my cup of tea, and he might be damaged goods at this point, but he's also a two-time league MVP with five more top-four MVP finishes and one of the most uniquely dominant players in NBA history. Trading a star to get a superstar at least makes sense in the broad picture.
Yet everything that's happened since the Celtics missed out on the Giannis trade early Tuesday morning has been very, very strange.
Chris Mannix said the Celtics were interested in trading Brown for Cleveland's Evan Mobley. That would be a downgrade. Most trades would be, frankly. Brown is not a perfect player, and he's not a superstar, but he has made two All-NBA Second Teams. He has made five All-Star teams, and he did win Eastern Conference Finals MVP and Finals MVP during the Celtics' championship run just two Junes ago.
Despite that, ESPN insider Brian Windhorst made this eye-opening statement this week:
"The most important thing in the league right now for what's going to happen in the 26-27 season is that Boston has apparently decided that Jaylen Brown probably needs to be traded for them to be the team that — you know, a competitive team."
They need to trade Jaylen Brown in order to be ... a competitive team?
Perhaps Windhorst misspoke, but it's the type of comment that makes you scratch your head and wonder what planet you're currently on. (The fact that Windhorst came out days later and bluntly stated, "he's gonna get traded," indicates he meant what he said.)
Brown is by no means a perfect player, and the Celtics' first-round collapse