Thanks again for the awesome questions everyone. I’m pushing these out pretty quickly for a couple of reasons. A. I have time this afternoon and B. I wanted to clear the deck for summer league content. So let’s just jump right into it.
johnnymost
Can you help me compare the Isaiah and brown trades? The emotional reactions were similar, but other than Thomas’s injury, were the analytics similar? Brad certainly can be cold, but ultimately, he gambled. He got that from Danny. I yield the floor
Good topic. I would say that they are a little bit the opposite in that JB is more of the Kyrie in this scenario (not making a 1 for 1 comparison, remember that “comparison is the thief of joy!). The Cavs felt like they had to move on from Kyrie and the Celtics sent Isaiah and picks for him. It made basketball sense but not emotional sense. Ultimately both sides lost on that one. Time will tell with this one.
I do worry about the cumulative effect of sending out franchise icons (Pierce, Garnett, Isaiah, Jaylen) in cold hearted moves. As much as we all want to believe that Jayson Tatum will retire a Celtic, there’s at least a little bit of doubt now, and that’s sad.
CGREEN34
Should Scheierman start this season at the 3? He looked very solid in a lot of games last year both on offense and defense. He also has a creative streak that I hope we get to see more of this season.
I have never known what to make of Baylor. I set my expectations low early on and in year two he exceeded them, so already he’s a pleasant surprise to me. I’m circling him as a guy that could see an additional leap as a 3rd year guy. On one hand, there are minutes to be had on the wing (George won’t play a full 82 games). On the other hand, there’s a glut of wings that are all competing for minutes. This will be one of the big storylines in training camp to watch. I might actually expand this topic into a “who should start?” discussion post.
New England Guy
Jeff, if we could have world peace, but the trade-off is that the Celtics vs Sixers games this year would not be televised or recorded in anyway, and fans would not be allowed to attend them, would it be worth it?
Wait, you mean we don’t have to watch Jaylen in a Sixers uniform AND there’s peace on Earth? What’s the catch?
PontiacDream
What would have to happen this season for the Jaylen trade to not loom over everything the whole time?
“Just win baby.“ – Al Davis
(Note: While wins in the regular season will help a bit, I think the general consensus will be that this team (and The Trade) will be judged by the playoffs. So yeah, the trade will loom over everything unless they somehow flip George and picks for a few more impactful long term solutions.
Maye The Force Be With You
I’ve read that around the league, the Volume 3 era is being viewed more critically—that rim pressure and shot creation are proving more valuable than simply taking more threes. We may have just seen that when the Knicks closed out the Finals shooting 35% overall and 32% from three. Brad has echoed wanting to attack the rim more, yet The Trade seems to push Boston even further in the opposite direction. Beyond Tatum, who on this roster replaces Jaylen’s shot creation?
Part of me wonders how much Brad was focused on Giannis with those “rim pressure” comments. Like he was setting the stage for that to be the big move. There aren’t a lot of Giannis level rim pressure guys out there, so I guess the answer was to double down on offensive rebounding type bigs (Robinson, Cenac, etc.)
The thing with the analytics era is that there’s no one all-encompassing stat or overarching rule. It is reductive to define it as “shoot lots of 3’s” because sometimes you need to attack the paint. Sometimes, especially in the playoffs, teams take away your best options and you just need a guy that can take and make tough, midrange shots. Jaylen Brown is one of those guys. Maybe Pritchard can fill that role sometimes. Paul George (to an extent) as well. Maybe one of the young wings can develop that as well.
BostonForEva
Regarding Jaylen Brown and not the Celtics. Sixers seem to me to have to many mouths to feed. Embiid, Brown, Maxey, and maybe Edgecombe if he gets better. This seems to me like a disaster in the making.
Knicks had Brunson as the engine and KAT as the supporting cast on offense. Then a LOT of good defensive pieces that were above average on offense.
Sixers have Maxey, Embiid as engines and Brown as the supporting cast on offense. Maxey is above average on defense. Barlow is above average on defense. And that’s it based on analytics. This seems like too many mouths to feed and not enough defense. I think Brown’s game is a horrible fit for the Sixers and I’m not sure why they did it other than wanting more Stars.
Thoughts on the new Sixers team and specifically on the impact to Brown? Also, how happy are the Sixers media and Sixers fans about the trade?
I think they’ll be fine, but you are right that they’ll have to figure things out. Maxey is too good to be the 1B so I hope Philly fans are ready for several seasons of debates over who the 1A guy is (despite it being pretty clear).
I do worry a bit for Edgecomb’s development, but he’s still young and can be fungible for a while. And yeah, you have to factor in Embiid missing at least a third of any season, which makes for some interesting lineup decisions.
Jaylen increases their ceiling, but there’s still a floor to consider as well.
ZeroGame
If you could give Brad truth serum what do you think the answer to the following question would be? “If you knew at the start of the offseason that this would be the outcome if you tried to trade Jaylon Brown, would you still do it?”
I have a feeling that the option to trade Jaylen Brown has been in the back of their minds for years. They would have done it for Durant. It sounds like they at least listened to offers last year. I think the finance math has been staring at them since the CBA was signed and they finally decided that the time was right.
357Dust
Is this the opening day roster?
Could Murphy still be in play?
Will Hauser still be here?
It might very well be. We’re below the tax with 14 players and they have the “optionality” to make more moves at the deadline and next offseason. This might be it.
I think Murphy is a long shot at this point. I also can’t begin to understand what New Orleans is trying to do.
Hauser seems like the most likely to be moved at some point. But he’s also valuable to us and it might make more sense to see how the season plays out and use him as a chip in February at the deadline.
scue
How many years of elite play do you expect from Tatum? He is currently 28, we are trying to clean cap, reset tax penalties, to load up for a future run which could put him on the wrong side of 30.
What do you see as the desired team structure in the future in support of 30 year old Tatum?
Good question. He has a very adaptable playing style. He can do a little bit of everything, but he seems to go up another level when he’s attacking downhill and not shying away from contact. I think he’ll still be in his prime for 3 to 4 more years before he has to start transitioning his game to more of a perimeter style. Ironically enough, one comp would be the current verison of Paul George.
cpelham
The narrative has been that JB didn’t want to return to being 1B in Boston, but he’s acting like he’s really unhappy he was traded. Which is it? Was it his fervent wish to remain in Boston with JT being demoted to 1B or traded? Was his unhappiness invented by the media? Is Brown just defending his pride, folllowing the perception that there was little demand for him? Can you make sense of it?
I don’t want to pretend to know what is or was going on inside of Jaylen Brown’s mind or what his motivations and private thoughts are.
I will, however, use this space to offer up some dot-connecting thoughts I had recently.
We heard Jaylen himself say that there was open communication with the front office at first but then it went sideways (paraphrasing).
We also got reporting recently that Jaylen got a chance to tell a couple of teams that he wasn’t interested in playing there.
I wonder if at first they were keeping him in the loop, but with him reaching out to teams and scaring them off they decided to start excluding him from talks. Might also be why there was so much noise around this (was Jaylen’s camp one of the leaks to the media?). At some point the Celtics might have been like ‘we’re shutting down communication and we will just going to trade him and the team will have 3 years to convince him to be ok with it.‘ And the Sixers were willing. Just a guess.
Thanks again for the questions!
Kurt Helin
Kurt Helin
