The Milwaukee Bucks traded Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis to the Miami Heat late Monday night for Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kasparas Jakucionis, three first-round picks, a pick swap and a second-round pick. Boston had pursued Antetokounmpo with an offer built around Jaylen Brown, but Milwaukee ultimately preferred Miami’s younger players and draft capital.

It’s finally over.

After weeks of reports, counterreports, fake trades, real negotiations and enough collective bargaining agreement analysis to qualify half of Celtics Twitter for an entry-level front office job, Giannis Antetokounmpo is taking his talents to South Beach.

The Celtics were involved deeply enough for Shams Charania to report that Jaylen Brown had been placed at the center of their offer, and close enough for Boston fans to spend several days weighing the arrival of one of the greatest players ever against the end of the partnership that has defined this era of Celtics basketball.

This would have hurt.

For a moment, Brown stopped feeling like the player we would watch next season and became the player we were preparing to remember. We pictured him in a Bucks uniform and imagined Jayson Tatum returning without the teammate who had grown up beside him. We began sorting through the past ten seasons of playoff runs, criticism, improvement and the championship they eventually won together.

Then Milwaukee chose Miami.

Brown remains a Celtic for now. Whatever happens next, the possibility of losing him brought his entire Boston career into sharper focus. It reminded us how much of the last decade he has occupied, how much he has given this franchise and how strange it would feel to see No. 7 play anywhere else.

Ten years ago, Boston greeted him with boos.

Brown was 19 years old when the Celtics selected him third overall in the 2016 NBA Draft, a pick that immediately disappointed a loud section of the fanbase. People wanted a trade. They wanted a bigger name like Kris Dunn, Dragan Bender or Buddy Hield. They wanted someone they had already decided was safer, readier or easier to understand.

Brown stepped into that noise and made a promise anyway.

“I’m going to go to war for the city,” he said shortly after being drafted. “I wear my heart on my sleeve and I’m gonna leave it on the floor every night. I love to play ball and I know you guys love to watch. So let’s build this bond, and I promise I won’t disappoint.”

Ten years later, Boston already has its answer. Brown has kept every part of that promise.

Jaylen has grown up in front of us

Brown’s path to NBA stardom has been anything but smooth.

He fought for minutes as a rookie on a veteran team trying to contend. He worked his way into the rotation, then into the starting lineup, then into the heart of a team that kept reaching the edge of something bigger without quite getting there.

Every step forward in his game seemed to uncover a new flaw for everyone else to discuss.

His handle was too loose. His decision-making was too slow. His shooting came and went. He couldn’t go left. He and Jayson Tatum supposedly could not play together. One of them would eventually have to leave. Brown’s contract was too large, his game too limited, his fit beside JT too uncertain.

Then he would come back the next season with another answer.

The handle tightened. The jumper improved. His body got stronger. His reads became quicker. He took on harder defensive assignments and gradually became someone Boston could trust with an entire possession when a game began to wobble.

His growth has rarely been graceful, and maybe that’s part of what makes his journey so satisfying.

Brown has become a five-time All-Star and a two-time All-NBA selection during his first decade in Boston. He has climbed to 10th on the Celtics’ all-time scoring list, surrounded by names that already hang above the floor at TD Garden. He’s helped Boston reach six conference finals and two NBA Finals while spending his entire career under the pressure that comes with playing for a franchise that measures success in banners.

Through all of it, he has simply kept getting better.

The run that changed everything

Brown’s place as a Celtics great was secure before 2024. That year’s postseason run made him a Celtics legend.

He entered the year carrying the label of the league’s most overpaid player after signing his (at the time) record-breaking supermax extension. He had just been left off the All-NBA teams despite helping Boston post the league’s best record, and the Celtics’ shiny new toys in the form of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis led some people to wonder whether he would become the odd man out.

Instead, Brown played the best basketball of his life when Boston needed it most.

He averaged 23.9 points during the 2024 playoffs while shooting 51.6 percent from the field, often drawing the most difficult defensive assignment on the other end. When the Celtics were seconds away from losing Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, Brown deflected an inbound pass, then buried the game-tying three. Two nights later, he scored 40 as Boston took control of a series it would eventually sweep.

If we thought that was the mountaintop, the Finals showed us Jaylen still had another level to reach.

Brown hounded Luka Doncic, attacked Dallas whenever Boston’s offense started drifting and delivered one of the defining performances of his career in Game 3. Boston nearly lost a 21-point fourth-quarter lead that night, but Brown steadied the game with the jumper that effectively ended Dallas’ comeback.

When the series ended in Boston, the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP trophy belonged to him.

Brown’s first instinct was to share it.

“It was a full team effort,” he said. “I share this with my brothers, and my partner-in-crime, Jayson Tatum. He was with me the whole way.”

That remains the Jays’ story at its best. They were drafted one year apart, compared constantly and blamed regularly whenever Boston fell short. Together, they grew through it. And when they finally reached the top, Brown used the greatest individual moment of his career to pull Tatum right beside him.

There is no banner 18 without both of them.

Boston has gotten more than a basketball player

Brown has never treated Boston like a temporary workplace. His ambitions have always extended beyond basketball.

Through the 7uice Foundation, he has worked to close opportunity gaps for young people in communities that are often overlooked. The Bridge Program brought students from Dorchester, Roxbury and other Boston neighborhoods to MIT, where they studied fields including artificial intelligence, robotics and climate science. He wants kids to see themselves in places that may once have felt closed to them.

Brown also launched Boston XChange with the goal of creating generational wealth in communities of color. Its creator incubator has supported local entrepreneurs working across arts, fashion, food and media. He partnered with Jrue Holiday to invest in people who had ideas and talent but had not always been given access to the rooms where money and opportunity move.

Brown has also become a trusted voice among his peers. In 2019, at only 22 years old, he was elected as a vice president of the National Basketball Players Association. His fellow players re-elected him to a third term in 2025, another reflection of the leader he has become and the respect he commands well beyond Boston.

All of it speaks volumes about the man Jaylen has become over the years. Brown could have kept his relationship with the city confined to basketball. Plenty of players do. They arrive, perform, maybe donate to a few visible causes and eventually leave.

Brown has studied the city, challenged it and invested in it.

Like Bill Russell before him, Brown cares about Boston without pretending the city is perfect. He has spoken openly about racism, education and economic inequality. He has marched against injustice and used the attention that comes with basketball to force conversations far beyond it.

Sometimes, that has made him complicated. He’s willing to say things that invite disagreement and think out loud in ways professional athletes are often trained to avoid. Brown is curious, ambitious and occasionally difficult to place into the neat little boxes fans prefer.

This year, Brown continued offering people a closer look at how he saw the game and the team around him. After the season, his livestreams became their own source of controversy when he called it his favorite year of basketball. Some fans heard that as a dismissal of the championship season, but his full explanation was far more personal. He had watched young teammates earn real roles, seen Tatum fight his way back from injury and helped a team with modest expectations become one of the East’s best.

The reaction was revealing. Celtics fans say they want athletes to be more open and candid, then occasionally bristle when those athletes give answers that do not match the ones they expected. Brown’s Twitch streams offer something rare: an unfiltered look at one of the best players in franchise history thinking through his season in real time. Even when people disagree with him, there is something special about being invited that close.

I, for one, am thrilled Boston gets the whole person.

History will remember the Jays together

When you talk about one Jay, it’s hard not to talk about the other. Brown and Tatum are not simply two stars who happen to share the court. As a duo, they have been Boston’s timeline. Celtics fans have watched them evolve from young prospects to playoff regulars, then through painful losses that felt like referendums on everything they were building.

They lost to LeBron James as kids. They battled with the Brooklyn experiment, Heat culture and Golden State’s dynasty. They heard that they did not pass enough, did not fit well enough and would never finish the job together.

But they did finish it together, and no trade can ever separate them in the Celtics history. The trade that never was would’ve ended the partnership. Instead, the Giannis pursuit reminded everyone how much the partnership has already accomplished.

What happens next between Brown and the Celtics is harder to know. Shams Charania reported that Boston made an offer built around Brown, but we have no idea what Brad Stevens told him behind closed doors, how seriously the Celtics believed Milwaukee was considering their package or whether Boston’s involvement helped force Miami to offer more. Once Milwaukee began prioritizing younger players and draft capital beyond Brown, the deal may have stopped making sense for the Celtics anyway.

Still, seeing your name publicly attached to a trade for your replacement can leave a bruise, even in a league where everyone understands the business. Stevens now has to make sure Brown knows where he stands and whether the trust that carried this partnership through years of rumors remains intact.

Brown has spent a decade giving Boston answers. After the past week, the Celtics may owe him one.

The promise became the legacy

There is a symmetry to Brown’s story in Boston that already feels almost too perfect to be real.

He arrived with people booing the pick before he had even put on the jersey. Instead of shrinking from that reception, he told the city exactly what he planned to give it.

He would go to war for Boston.

Over the next decade, he has lived up to every word.

He has played through criticism and trade rumors, transforming parts of his game that people treated as permanent limitations. He has defended the best players in the world, carried the Celtics through crucial playoff moments and kept the franchise among the league’s top-tier contenders.

Away from the floor, he’s treated Boston like a place worth investing in. He’s given young people access to education and helped local creators imagine businesses of their own. He understands that wearing Celtics green gives him influence and has tried to make that influence useful and positive.

The boos did not define his relationship with Boston. They only made what followed more meaningful.

One day, Jaylen Brown will walk onto the TD Garden floor with his family beside him and watch No. 7 rise above his head. Tatum’s No. 0 will find its way up there eventually, too, because even history should understand that those two are inseparable.

Brown’s journey in Boston began beneath those rafters with people wondering why he was here. Someday, it will end in the same building with thunderous applause, as the city he went to war for gets the chance to thank him for everything he has given it.

But that day is not here yet.

No. 7 still belongs on the floor. Jaylen Brown is still a Celtic. And after spending the past week imagining how we would say goodbye, Boston has another chance to appreciate him before his place among the legends becomes something we can only look up at.

The 2026 NBA Draft happens begins Tuesday night. The Sixers are likely going to make their only pick in this year’s draft at 22^nd overall. It’s an important pick for the franchise as it was the primary return in the highly-scrutinized Jared McCain trade from this past February. With Mike Gansey taking over as the team’s new president of basketball operations, we felt now was a good time to look back on Gansey’s draft record in Cleveland, a front office he worked in for nearly a decade.

Before we go any further, it’s important to point out that Gansey was always working under Koby Altman in Cleveland. That’s likely to change now that Gansey is in Philadelphia. If you take the Sixers at their word that Bob Myers will only be involved from afar, Gansey’s going to be making practically all the final decisions when it comes to personnel and day-to-day basketball operations.

We’ll see what Gansey has up his sleeve in his first offseason running the Sixers, but the most widely-held belief as to what the Sixers are going to do with the 22^nd overall pick next week is to use it on a player that can quickly assimilate into their rotation and give them some much-needed bench help. Gansey’s tenure in Cleveland’s front office spanned a long enough time to see the Cavs drafting in a variety of places across the first round which makes this an interesting exercise. Without further ado, we’ll look at the hits, misses and TBDs of the Cleveland first-round picks under Gansey.

Hits

Collin Sexton (8^th overall – 2018): Sexton was the first draft pick the Cavaliers made after Gansey was promoted from the G League to assistant general manager. Perhaps this one might be more in the gray area. Sexton has played for four teams already since being drafted and has never made an All-Star game, but I do think if you’re simply deciding between hit and miss, Sexton is a hit. For his career, he’s averaged over 18 points per game and shot just below 40% from the three-point line. His assist totals could likely be a bit higher, but he’s always been more of a combo guard than a true point guard anyway. Plus, he had to be good enough for Utah to want as a piece in the Donovan Mitchell trade four years ago, right?

Darius Garland (5^th overall – 2019): Much like Sexton, Garland is no longer with Cleveland, although he stuck around with the Cavs much longer than Sexton did. Additionally, there should be no mixed feelings on Garland’s time in the NBA. The two-time All-Star slowly got better in his first three seasons as a pro and perhaps what’s most notable about his statistical increases is that his assist average went from 3.9 per game to 8.6 per game from his rookie season to his third season in the association. If you’re still scratching your head as to why Cleveland traded Garland in a deal that brought back James Harden, you’re not alone, but the sole action of drafting Garland has to be a hit. 

Evan Mobley (3^rd overall – 2021): This one’s a no-brainer. Mitchell is probably Cleveland’s best player, but Mobley is definitely the second-best player on the Cavs’ roster in that case. The USC product is a walking double-double and is just one year removed from winning the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award.

Additional hits: We do want to take some time for Cleveland’s ability to dig up Sam Merrill and Dean Wade while Gansey was working there. After one season in Milwaukee and another in Memphis, Merrill was fighting for survival in the NBA in 2022. He joined Cleveland’s G-League roster to start the 2022-23 season and by March was signed to a 10-day contract with the Cavaliers. Since then, he has blossomed into a rotation player that’s usually playing between 15 and 25 minutes per night.

Wade joined the Cavs immediately after not being drafted in 2019. He would appear in 12 games at the NBA level in 2019-20 before playing 63 and becoming a fixture in the NBA for years to come. He’s grown to the point where he’s starting more than half the regular season games he’s appearing in for Cleveland. His stats don’t stand out, but he’s certainly been a positive return on investment given that he’s still with the organization seven years after not being drafted.

Misses

Isaac Okoro (5^th overall – 2020): After six seasons in the NBA, Okoro has at the very least carved out a role for himself as a professional, but when you’re merely a role player as a top-five pick regardless of how weak the draft might have been, that’s a disappointment. And yes, if you’re thinking “Wasn’t 2020 the COVID draft that took place in November?” you’d be correct, but we still had most of the college basketball season take place in 2019-20. The point is, Okoro has became a decent wing defender who doesn’t score a lot and while that’s kept him around in the NBA, it’s not enough to be a hit as a top-five selection. Cleveland moved on from Okoro last season too, trading him for Lonzo Ball last offseason which should tell you a lot. 

Ochai Agbaji (14^th overall – 2022): While Agbaji never played a game for the Cavaliers, he wasn’t one of those selections who saw his rights get traded to another team on draft night either. Therefore, we have to include him here because Cleveland at least drafted him with some intention of him playing in Northeast Ohio. Agbaji was selected at the end of the lottery four years ago, but was included with Sexton in the trade to Utah for Mitchell just before training camp opened for the 2022-23 season. He’s started less than half the games he’s appeared in during his four seasons in the NBA, his numbers have fluctuated but have never been anything that have stood out and it would come as no surprise if he’s hanging on for dear life just to survive in the NBA a couple years from now.

To Be Determined

Jaylon Tyson (20^th overall – 2024): This one’s probably the pick that could be the most insightful for Philly’s 22^ndoverall pick next week for a couple of reasons. First off, it’s a pick that was made just two years ago and is the closest of all of these selections in the first round to 22^nd overall. Tyson was also the only pick of these first-rounders that wasn’t a lottery pick. Additionally, through two seasons in the NBA, Tyson’s early career arc seems to be mirroring what you get out of good picks made in the first round outside of the lottery.

Much like Tyrese Maxey for the Sixers, Tyson did not come right into the NBA and start a lot of games. Now, his role was less in Cleveland during his rookie season that Maxey’s was in Philly, but Tyson took a big leap from his rookie season to his second season. He started just three games as a rookie and that number ballooned to 42 starts in 2025-26. All of his statistical numbers went up and Cleveland is probably most encouraged by a 10-point uptick in his three-point percentage from 34.5% in 2024-25 to 44.6% this past season.

It’s still just a TBD because these players often improve incrementally and we’ve only seen one season of incremental improvement from Tyson. He’ll have to continue to get better like Maxey did as he takes on a bigger role for the Cavaliers and plays even more minutes in the future. Having said this, it looks like this pick is trending towards a hit for the Cleveland front office. 

Verdict

While there are more hits than misses, I think most juries would still be deliberating if this was the only available evidence put in front of them. With the exception of maybe Sexton, all of these players are still young enough in their NBA careers for things to change in a positive or negative direction, even if you might have your mind made up on a lot of them.

For purposes of the exercise, I had three hits, two misses and one TBD which leaves the final grade very difficult to give anyway. It’s also worth noting that most of these picks, particularly the ones in the top 10, were likely Altman’s calls as it would only be logical to assume that Altman was making the more impactful roster decisions and Gansey was tasked with finding marginal improvements. That’s another reason why Cleveland selecting Tyson seems like the best reflection of Gansey in the present day. By the 2024 draft, Cleveland was coming off a season in which it made it to the second round of the playoffs. Its core, mostly built by Altman, was in place and marginal upgrades were more easily achievable.

We should note that the marginal upgrades like Merrill and Wade are also a good sign for Gansey’s future in Philadelphia, particularly in the short term. If you subscribe to the widely-held belief that Philadelphia is simply stuck with Paul George and Joel Embiid for the next few seasons, then how else are they going to improve? Even if they hit a home run at 22, that’s still just one player for a team that needs probably three or four serviceable bench players to feel good about its rotation next season. Adding cheap talent in the second round, undrafted free agency or simply players like Merrill who were late bloomers after one or two changes of scenery is how you improve marginally. Doing that enough in the next 6-24 months might just be enough for the Sixers to become a contender with Embiid and George still on their cap sheet. Plus, finding cheap rotation players that are young would give fans more reason for optimism about what the team could look like in the 2030s, presumably built around Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe.

At the end of the day, there’s more to like than to dislike when it comes to Cleveland’s evaluation of draft prospects with Mike Gansey in its front office. It’s a thumbs up for Gansey based on what we know, but you probably also shouldn’t be brimming with confidence either.

Just when you thought basketball season was over until the fall! The New York Knicks win their first NBA title since the Nixon administration and they get precisely 10 days to enjoy it, as the NBA calendar quickly moves on to the the NBA Draft and later free agency set to begin on June 30. And that doesn’t even include trade season – Giannis is already on the move to Miami!

Tonight’s draft will have an Iowa tinge to it, as Bennett Stirtz looks set to become Ben McCollum’s first NBA draft pick and Iowa’s third first rounder since 2022, after Keegan and Kris Murray joined the Association in 2022 and 2023, respectively. After a huge drought of first round picks between Ricky Davis and Keegan, Iowa now looks to get three in a four-year window.

The Scout

You all saw Stirtz play, both at Drake two seasons ago and then at Iowa this past season. The shot making. Don’t let anyone else tell you he’s a bad athlete – he’s not. At times, excellent defense. The near-iron man minutes. Stirtz lived up to all of the billing that accompanied him from Drake in his lone season at Iowa, a season that – remember this?? – ended with the Hawks making the Elite Eight for the first time since 1987. Stirtz averaged 19.8 points, 2.6 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 1.4 steals per game in that lone campaign in Iowa City. Oh and he finished with 48/36/85 shooting splits. Not bad! He backed that up at the NBA combine in Chicago on May 11. Stirtz measured in at 6-2 1/2 without shoes with a 6 1/2-foot wingspan. He had a 37 1/2-inch vertical at the combine, with a 30 1/2-inch no step vertical. Stirtz also had a 3/4 court sprint time of 3.17 seconds, which was good for fourth in the combine.

Those are pretty good numbers overall and put to bed most worries about his athleticism, but where Stirtz really blew up was in the shooting categories. Stirtz was 20/25 on spot-up jumpers and 23/30 off the dribble. The spot up number was the best at the combine (out of 26), while he tied for third in off the dribble shooting (also out of 26.) In the 3-point star drill, he made 16 of 25 attempts, which tied him for 6th out of 25. He’s impressed enough that Jay Bilas finally found it in his heart to mention Iowa, where he has Stirtz listed as the sleeper of the draft.

The Draft Projections

Prior to his excellent combine, mock drafts such as The Athletic had Stirtz going at 26 overall to the Denver Nuggets. Not bad for a former D-II player, finding yourself in late first round territory. And also, yes, please on that draft – Denver needs another player that can shoot and take the ball handling burden off of Jamal Murray and to an extent, Nikola Jokic.

But that was pre-Combine. Post-Combine, every mock I’ve found has Stirtz moving into the top 20. The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie has Stirtz at 19 overall to Toronto. Vecenie notes hearing Stirtz in a tight range from 16 to 21, which would be landing spots in Memphis, Oklahoma City, Charlotte, the aforementioned stop north of the border in Toronto, San Antonio, or Detroit. ESPN’s latest mock has Stirtz at 17 to Oklahoma City. J. Kyle Mann’s last mock at The Ringer has Stirtz at 21 to Detroit. One could do worse than Toronto, Oklahoma City, or Detroit. All three were in the playoffs, and Oklahoma City was a game away from a shot at defending their 2025 title.

The 2026 NBA Draft begins at 7:00 p.m. central and will air on ESPN/ABC.

It’s been 40 days since the Minnesota Timberwolves season ended. The rest of the league wrapped things up just over a week ago, so it’s time we officially turn the page on the 2025-2026 NBA season.

Nothing signals the start of a new season like the NBA draft.

That was my initial thought before Monday night happened. The Wolves weren’t expected to make much of a splash as far as the draft is concerned, holding just picks 28 and 59. The focus was more about a lot of looming player movement dominoes. Well, most of those dominoes fell yesterday.

With Julius Randle jettisoned, Ayo Dosunmu terms agreed to, and the 28th pick turned into the 33rd pick, Wolves fans should expect to a rather drama-free evening. Let’s congregate in the ol’ Canis comments section to see what happens to the other 29 teams!

Draft Info

What: 2026 NBA Draft Round 1
When: Tuesday, June 23, 2026 @6:00 pm CT
Where: Barclays Center (Brooklyn, NY)
TV: ABC/ESPN

What to Expect on Draft Night

The Timberwolves books look a lot different than they did 24 hours ago. Prior to shedding Randle’s $33.3 million contract, adding a fringe-first round rookie (pick 28) at roughly $3 million a year would have been tough. However, dumping his contract came at the cost of sliding down from pick 28, to pick 33. Some pundits have had the discussion of whether a guaranteed contract of a first round pick is more valuable than the open flexibility of a second round pick, so it’s worth asking if this was really was a downgrade.

That said, Wolves President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly came from out of the shadows to acquire the eighth overall pick during the 2024 draft. Even prior to Connelly giving up this year’s first round pick yesterday, there was speculation that he could be up to something similar again.

Was this just some last minute due diligence? Or was a precursor of something else Connelly has cooking in the oven like they did when they secretly brought in Joan Beringer for a workout? In theory, it does make sense for Minnesota to get back into the mix as they have more financial flexibility to acquire and sign a first round pick post-Randle trade.

As mentioned earlier, many fans around the league will be eagerly awaiting announcements of ensuing blockbuster trades to come. Randle was first, and then came Giannis Antetokounmpo. Who’s next? Jaylen Brown? Kyrie Irving? Derrick White?

What else will happen tonight?

Draft updates

LIVE updated board:

Round 1:

1. WAS
2. UTA
3. MEM
4. CHI
5. LAC
6. BKN
7. SAC
8. ATL
9. DAL
10. MIL
11. GSW
12. OKC
13. MIL
14. CHO
15. CHI
16. MEM
17. OKC
18. CHO
19. TOR
20. SAS
21. DET
22. PHI
23. ATL
24. NYK
25. LAL
26. DEN
27. BOS
28. BKN
29. CLE
30. DAL