The Jaylen Brown trade is over and done with. The Boston Celtics made their bed. They traded Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George, two firsts, and two seconds. But apparently, Boston's desire to trade Brown lingered far before the summertime.
According to Shams Charania of ESPN, the Golden State Warriors could have traded for Brown at the deadline if they were willing to give up enough first-round draft capital. In this scenario, the bar was set at around four first-round picks.
"The Warriors could've got in the Jaylen Brown sweepstakes if they wanted to give up four first-round picks-ish, in that range," Charania said on The Stephen A. Smith Show. "They decided not to, from my understanding. Those two teams, the Warriors and Celtics, did talk about a Jaylen Brown trade around the trade deadline, and it was around several first-round draft picks, potential swaps, and seconds. The Warriors decided not to go down that route, and so that's on them. That's the decision they made."
Logan Murdock of The Ringer followed up on that, noting that the organization could not come to an agreement on the deal. And ultimately, the Warriors decided that Brown wasn't the right guy to lead them into the post-Stephen Curry era.
"The Warriors had an opportunity to trade for the former Celtic before the deadline in February but couldn’t build an organizational consensus that Brown would be the right player to carry the Warriors beyond the Curry era," Murdock wrote.
Now, Charania was discussing the move in the context of the LeBron James sweepstakes. Could the Warriors have landed James if they had already traded for Brown? Maybe. And that's its own discussion. But this also says a lot about the Celtics.
At this year's trade deadline, the Celtics were 33-18. They were tied with the New York Knicks for the second seed in the Eastern Conference. Brown was averaging 29.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 1.0 steals while shooting 48.6% from the field and 36.3% from deep on 5.9 3-point attempts per contest.
Yet he was still on the trade block. The Celtics still tried to trade him. And had the Warriors coughed up enough first-round draft capital, he could have ended last season in San Francisco.
To me, that says one thing: Trading Brown was not a reactionary deal. It was not a huffing-and-puffing decision made after a second straight disappointing playoff exit. It was not something Boston decided to do simply to shake things up.
The Celtics have known that they wanted to trade Brown. In their eyes, as soon as the second apron forced them to disband the Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford-lined Justice League, that was it. The Tatum-Brown combination wasn't good enough to win a title without that type of infrastructure around them. And under the current CBA, that type of infrastructure is virtually unattainable and wholly unsustainable.
On top of that, the eventual trade package Boston received from the 76ers wasn't what they wanted. If that wasn't obvious already. Considering they were asking for four firsts at the deadline, that means one thing: The market was crashing.
If no one was willing to give up four firsts for Brown at the deadline, why would they after a playoff exit like the one Boston suffered? The Celtics had already made up their mind to move Brown, and they didn't want to risk the market falling even further. So they took the best offer at the time.
None of this is to say that Boston made the right decision. That cannot truly be determined until next season unfolds, and a few more years of context afterward will probably still be necessary. But it is worth noting that, based on this reporting, the desire to trade Brown wasn't spontaneous. Not even close.
© Mark J. Rebilas
Stephen Curry
1. The Stephen Curry angle
That's the Celtics side of things. But what about the Warriors? Why wouldn't they trade for Brown to help Curry compete for a championship in his final few NBA seasons? In short ... that's not their goal anymore.
Tim Kawakami of The San Francisco Standard, a long-time Warriors reporter, recently noted Joe Lacob's desire to build the next Warriors team in the post-Curry world. That part of his statement went viral, though there was a bit more context behind it.
"Lacob wants to—and this might get Warriors fans mad—he wants to build the next team after Steph Curry," Kawakami said on The TK Show. "I don't know how possible that is. But Lacob has a keen interest in, 'I am going to show, or this organization is going to show what it can do with Steph Curry and then after Steph Curry.'"
Included in that sentiment is the desire to help Curry. But that part of the equation hasn't exactly been reflected in