Brad Stevens on if Jayson Tatum had any involvement in the Jaylen Brown trade: “None.”
Thank you pete buttigieg, very thoughtful insight
Oh my god I knew Stevens looked like someone!
Stevens for President came along way before Pete
Pretty sure Brad and Pete went as each other one Halloween
owner kind of looks like Will Forte too
Kind of?
Indiana boys
I for one would not be surprised in the least to see Boston go 55-27 next year with Tatum having an MVP-caliber season
They definitely are.
The Celtics are like the Tampa Bay Rays. Everyone shits on them, underestimates them all offseason, then like clockwork they always find a way to come out on top. It happened when they traded KG and Pierce to the Nets, it happened when they made Thomas their first scoring option, it happened when they let Kyrie walk in free agency, it happened when they parted ways with Ime Udoka, it happened last season when Tatum was hurt and you bet your ass it’s going to happen this year too.
I guarantee you they still finish with a better record than Philadelphia.
Lol this Knicks fan has seen some straight bullshit these past 15 years. Kudos on the title.
Boston was the preseason championship favorite 3 years in a row from 2022-2024.
we shouldve had them winning two championships per year throughout that span to give them their deserved respect
To be fair, their preseason win totals went 16-14 for the last 30 years. Feels pretty properly rated to me.
Clippers of the east. It finally ended for the west at least
It’s hard to win when 72 of the 82 games will have Adem Bona or Ariel Hukporti starting at center
Yep, people in this sub are forgetting that Embiid gets injured all the time. It’s amnesia. Same thing happened in this year’s playoffs.
The issue is sometimes he comes back in the playoffs and beats you in the first round
Why does he do that man it’s kinda rude lowkey
People acted like he was going to beat NY and have a serious chance at winning the title, He literally almost died in G7. He isn’t playing 20-24 games straight.
Vs this comment chain who thinks the guy coming off an achilles, who missed game 7 entirely, will be MVP?
MVP-caliber season and winning the MVP are completely different things
Never in your life compare the Celtics to my sweet Rays again
Nah no way are the Celtics comparable to the Rays in terms of underestimating them and shitting on them
The Rays haven’t done shit besides 1 WS loss and some mid playoff runs?
My point is that the Rays are an organization who somehow always find themselves to be competitive, no matter who they trade or what alterations they make to their team.
Trade Chris Archer? Still competitive. Trade Blake Snell? Still competitive. Lose that young star shortstop because he’s a pedo? Still competitive. Trade Glasnow? Still competitive.
May it be so!!
Just want to add though that the season after KG and Pierce was ROUGH, haha. As a young fan, I truly learned at that time that I should be thankful wheneverwe have a superstar on our team. Fortunately IT4 arrived part way through the following season.
We are manifesting a 27/10/7 statline
27 is rookie numbers. With the amount of usage he will have next season I expect minimum 30.
You forget he has to share shots with Pritchard, George and Hugo
Ok so 35 then lol
He will still probably have a career high usage.
That’s exactly what I predict is going to happen.
Tbf last year everyone had free wins cuz half the league was tanking. Boston is closer to a 50 win team than a 55+
yup. another reason the Cs had inflated stats w brown. the heaviest tank year ive ever seen in the nba which makes sense since the draft was so deep. insanely strong top 3 and great talent all the way until yaxel
nets pacers wiz jazz kings grizz mavs pels all 26 wins and under. 8 teams lmao. for context the previous year had only 6, 6, 3, 5 and 6. have to go back to 2019 to get worse and honestly teams weren’t even tanking that year - they were just bad
Aww shit the Pacers are going to be pissed this year!
I mean they just 56-26 in a “gap year.” There’s really no argument they should be worse imo. You slot Tatum in for JB, a full season of PG is better than 1⁄3 of a season of Tatum, and then you add Mitch and an extra year of development for the young guys. 55 wins seems incredibly reasonable imo.
> A full season of PG
Love PG man but slotting him in for a full season is just unrealistic. Y’all will be good regardless of his availability, but would be wise to temper expectations there
That’s fair, he is 37. Still though him being more impactful than Tatum last year should be the bare minimum, and I obv mean this with no shade at Jayson he was as good as he couldve been.
Age a concern for sure, but more so the knee. He hyperextended it twice in his first 30 days as a Sixer, and had another undisclosed injury requiring surgery on it last offseason just working out. He basically never looked healthy in his 2 years in Philly until after his suspension.
He looks great right now and hopefully it stays that way, but that’s the context that worried me most about PG going forward
Even then, you’re slitting George into that limited Tatum role from last season.
Tatum only played 16 games and most of it was just him ramping up.
If brad values hugo/baylor so much then they have the wing depth to treat him like old horford
There are less tanking teams next season
Yeah, the Celtics feasted on the bad teams, and we’re subpar against the top teams. Way less of those this upcoming season
Think it’s probably fairer to shift the lens on last season from “56 win team” to “2 seed in the East”. Still impressive but solves for the win-inflation from tanking teams
Yeah, PG, who has played more than 56 games once in the past 6 seasons, and now is 36, will likely play a full season… Lol
Spot on. It’s basically last years team minus Brown and plus Robinson, George, and a full season of Tatum as a clear #1 option. I don’t see why folks are saying this team will be worse than last year.
And Conley
I could see them hitting 65+ wins
You basically have an on-off superstar in Tatum, combined with a bunch of moneyball players like Pritchard, MitchRob, Queta, DWhite, Hugo, etc.
Even PG is a great Mazzula-ball player if you ignore the contract.
yeah, George lowkey fits onto the Celtics roster very well. Even at his age, he’s still one of the best 3&D players in the league. If he manages to play 50-ish games, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Celtics hit that win count.
Then getting bounced in the first round because they choked again after chucking up a record amount of 3s.
And then what
First round exit :(
We have someone that can play against Embiid this year though
2nd round exit, here we come!
I’d be shocked if he plays 65+ games
Yup
With a bit of luck and a healthy roster, they might even break 2025-2026 regular season record!
I mean you’re basically just replacing JBs minutes with Tatum who’s a better passer and more efficient scorer. Add that to improving the centre depth, and replacing some of those simons minutes with the young guys plus Playoff PED, and it’s not outlandish to think the Celtics team is better than last years regular season Celtics team.
Saying that, the teams designed worse for playoff success for next year; but hopefully next playoffs Mazz actually plays the young guys considerable minutes unlike last year when he played Tatum and brown 35+ mins a game for the first 6 games of the series when it’s a test year to see what we had with the young bench guys
I mean I get why either Jay could be a bit fed up with each other after last season.
I honestly kept having the thought that if Jaylen went down and Jayson & Celtics had an almost identical season, Jayson would have a real shot at MVP because of the narrative.
And on the flip side, Jaylen’s largest sentiment about this season was how it was his favorite ever. Even after losing a 3-1 lead for the first time in franchise history, and not winning a single playoff series
I think the media machine is done w/ SGA getting MVPs after all this flopping talk.
If Celtics and Lakers “over perform” in the regular season, I could see the media pushing the Tatum vs Luka, Celtics vs Lakers MVP narrative
Why would anyone be surprised?
With JB shouldering the load, they were a 50-win team. A very good team.
Swap out JB with (healthy) JT, upgrade a couple role players. Add PG who, while overpaid, is still a good player. They will play roughly the same way, with the same team-wide dedication and discipline.
Ofc they remain a very good team?
Sorry but they’re a first round exit. Don’t care how many wins they muster. Nobody is scoring on that team in the playoffs when Tatum is doubled.
he gets doubled in every game? that’s why the rest of the roster is 3 point shooters
Ok and he used to have an All-NBA finals MVP that bailed him out of those doubles. Oh and that was back when Derrick White was considered a shooter. You guys are screwed.
The fun part is Vegas has the Knicks as favorites for the Finals from the East, followed by the Celtics. Then the Sixers.
Tatum is one of the best in the league at playmaking out of double teams
Depends on what seed they end up with and whether or not George gets traded again
Well that would be a fine standard for regular franchises..
But this is the celtics and they play for banners, we will see how far this team goes in the playoffs.
The Celtics have won 2 titles in the last 40 years. Calm down with the “they play for banners.”
5 other teams have won more banners since 1986
He seems very satisfied with himself
That smug son of a person.
Serious Nico vibes
He’s lowkey a genius based on his track record. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes a steal for the Celtics
He was great as a coach and he’s been great as a GM, so I’m definitely withholding judgment. I am confused tho…
I was confused too but then if this was the best offer on the market, then clearly the entire team sees brown’s value at 60+M a negative.
Brad could be contrarian but you also have to be realistic.
What track record?
Are you being fr
Yes. He has been a GM for only 5 years.
I mean he traded for Derrick white, traded away smart for porzingis, brought back horford and traded for Jrue Holiday, literally built the team around Tatum and brown that won a chip. Pretty good track record in 5 years if you ask me
Derrick white and KP were smart moves. Brad lucked into Jrue as he took advantage of the Bucks desperation move. Otherwise Time Lord and Brogdon still would have been on the roster.
It’s not a bad track record but it’s way too soon to say that he has a proven track record when he was gifted Tatum and Brown from the start.
Time will tell if this was a smart move giving away your 2nd best player to your competition for future cap space and picks.
“Lucked into Jrue” is some hating ass language tbh there are 29 other teams that would love to “luck” into Jrue holiday but Brads the one who did it and then they win a chip that year, so have to give him credit for sure
This is some generational cope lmfao.
The only move you luck into in the NBA is moving up in the draft lottery.
And didn’t make the trade that netted them Tatum and JB…
If Nico was a different race and better speaker reddit would love him too
Did Nico win a chip? He built the entire team around Jb and Jt that won a championship and you’re comparing him to Nico? lol yeah okay
Nope, but he made the finals team building around a guy who hasn’t won a playoff series since then
True… problem with Nico is he didn’t properly shop Luka and max his trade value. Brad shopped Jaylen openly after his best career year and was fielding offers from any team who wanted him, his trade value just wasn’t high because of his supermax. Plus Brad actually, ya know, won the championship. So I’d say they have close to nothing in common.
Stupid sexy Kerr. I mean Brad
What we got back for brown was.. nothing at all.. nothing at all! nothing at all!!!
You didn’t watch the whole thing
celtics fans were saying he looks sad but he lowkey got real smiley towards the end
Bro is ecstatic
“Let him know it was all me. I want him to know it was me and me alone”
What did people think he was gonna say? “Yeah Tatum really didn’t like all the off-court drama with JB and was a huge advocate for trading him”
Wouldn’t hurt if it was true. 🤷♂️
I believe it. My son has no input when we throw him a surprise birthday party.
This is definitely going to be a meme. The slow zoom in while he smirks like a smug 10yo only for his face to drop and get deadly serious as he says, “None.” It’s cinematic lol
Tatum said “jaylen who?”
Espn: Jayson tatum didnt stop the trade from happening, rift between the two bigger than expected??
biggest shit eating grin.
Analítics
A strange smile from someone facing imminent dismissal.
once again reddit shows how far it is from reality
I love these questions. Whether Tatum had a say or not in reality, of course Stevens is going to say no.
He could be lying. We have no idea.
I get it’s a business, but not involving JT AT ALL in this decision seems a bit weird. Like what if Jayson REALLY enjoyed playing with JB and they just went and pissed him off?
So you really think saying yes to this question was the better option? Lol yeah right
Why would the Celtics tell the public that JT was involved? It would only make JT look bad.
Well it makes the Celtics look insane. No input from your best player on whether he wants to continue playing with their second best player who won a championship together, just averaged 28ppg and led them to the second best record in the conference. And THEN traded him for PG and some picks. If I’m JT I would be livid. UNLESS I had some input and didn’t want to play with JB anymore
Lmao or you’re a bitch ass sixers fan just trying to stir shit up
Chill bro, I’m really not. I’m just trying to understand why the Celtics would break up the duo. It seems clear Tatum didn’t want to play alongside him any more. But IF Tatum really had no input, that just seems crazy to break them up to trade for PG and some picks lol if they made a Giannis trade or something I could totally understand it
The team they won a chip with got depleted and sold for parts because it was built before the new CBA. Now (like Brad said if you actually listened) it’s just not possible to build a championship team when JB is getting the supermax. So you trade him now when he’s at all time high value and start over one year sooner when George’s contract expires. That’s the reality of the new CBA
Flair up pussy.
Grow up son, flair doesn’t mean anything.
I’m not your son, buddy
A good leader always takes the blame.
If I’m JT and am confused, I talk to my agent who explains how the apron works.
JT just never been involved in any roster decisions. Be surprising to me if it was the other way around and he was involved.
Trading your second best player who just averaged 28ppg is not just any old roster decision. If they really didn’t get JTs input if he wanted to continue playing alongside Jaylen, and THEN just trade him for PG and some picks, that seems criminal.
Dont know what to tell you. JT has never really been involved. Never really heard a whiff that he was involved in any big trades or signing and there been a bunch since he been here.
I think well ran organizations care less about what a star player thinks because they have their star player bought into their culture and process.
He’s been there for 9 years. I’m sure the front office knows him better than that without needing to ask. They’re not the Kangz
So then JT did have input, even if it wasn’t directly. You think if JT wanted to continue playing with Jaylen, they would trade him, for PG and some picks?
“We didn’t need to ask him, we already know Tatum thinks he’s a bitch lmao”
Is that what you expected stevens to say?
Yes. After watching the very long list of guys who have moved on over the years he gets it.
They couldn’t ask JT cause he probably wouldn’t sign off on a JB for PG swap
He expects us to believe that Jayson TatGM didn’t have a say?
Tatum doesn’t write the checks.
Not sure I would like that answer as a Boston fan
Lmao oh really, he should say “Yeah this was all my star player’s idea”?
I mean if it was his idea then that is 100% the right response. Just the way I read it was that they didn’t even consult him
He says later in the same part that players are never involved with trades for their opinions as they try and move quick to beat the leaks
It’s the PR answer because anything else would imply Tatum signed off the trade and stirr up drama
That makes sense
He tried to take the heat for everyone involved in this, but really it just ends up insulting the fanbase. No real answers, clear lies everywhere. Painful to watch. Understandable, but all of this just isn’t what I have grown to expect from the Celtics.
I’m a longtime fan and I don’t feel insulted. He told us that it was difficult to construct a championship roster with 70% of the cap and high usage being devoted to the Jays so he valued the flexibility and optionality that this trade offered
We still have 70% of the cap tied to players. Only difference is year 3. Could have still kept Jaylen for 2 years, only difference is the 2028 first, which could end up without much value. Potentially could have moved Jaylen after year two as well.
JB just had the best year of his career with number one guy usage, his numbers and trade value will only go down with every year that passes. You only keep him if you think you can win a chip with him and this roster in the next 2 years. Clearly the Celtics can’t so you try to get back the money you’re spending on Jaylen ASAP to spend it elsewhere. That’s the reality of paying a guy like Jaylen Brown the super max under the new CBA.
Nothing you said is counter to what I said.
If we know we can’t win a championship (I disagree there) but if that is the thinking in your scenario, then you don’t trade for Paul George and one potentially nice pick in 2028. You trade him for some either young players or salary match bad players and picks.
You trade for Paul George because he’s a replacement level wing with one less year on his contract so you can start using that money sooner. And yeah, I have opinions about what I want in return for JB too, but clearly his value is not what Celtics fans hope.
My point that trading for Paul George implies you still think you can win the championship (I think they can and I think they could have with Jaylen). Which your original comment said the logic behind it was they did not think they could.
The Celtics with George on the roster are competitive, imo just as good as last year with the potential to be a little better or worse. But I don’t think bringing PG in is about trying to win now. It’s about getting that money a year sooner so you can spend it how you really want to, and in the meantime you get a guy who replaces a good % of JBs productivity.
I agree, just refuting your point that they didn’t think they could win this year.
Trading for Paul George was about acquiring the draft capital more than anything. It’s about the longterm, not this season.
They were probably the best picks the Celtics were offered. And as an added bonus Paul George can slot in to a lot of the stuff we will lose with Jaylen’s exit, when PG is healthy to play.
Only difference is 60M, expiring a year earlier and potentially taking less if it works out. So yeah pretty big difference.
they cant be honest cuz that would sound like throwing Brown under the bus
Like I said, I get what he tried to do, but it was painful to watch. It was painfully clear that the reasons he gave were not the full story, which just gives more credibility to Brown not being a player they value very highly.
I think trading away brown for old man pandemic p gives obvious credibility to the notion that they don’t value him very highly
Yeah, that is what I said.
You’re right but they’re gonna eat up whatever they’re told lol