Imagine if the guy they traded away just willingly passed the ball to those role players that are fighting tooth and nail for extra possessions whenever they’re open, instead of forcing contested middies just so he can have the best offensive season of his career. Those TS% would have skyrocketed.

He at least had a good track record in those areas even last season.

His 2025-6 stats of 15.1 pts, 8.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists aren’t too shabby. Especially for a slow guy with zero vertical.

Not a total bum, and the trade made sense at the time.

I disagree! Great trade!

👌 Nice one

He wasn’t actually. If you look JT still put up better #s than JB while being doubled constantly and JB getting open looks because JT was being doubled.

Listen, I hate that JB was traded, but he has never been better than JT. Not ever.

It’s not about next year, it’s about not wasting Tatums prime doing the same thing over and over.

I would flip that on its head: ditching JB is the Celtics wasting Tatums prime. They’re objectively less competitive than they would have been had they kept Brown. PG is going to have half JB’s availability for whatever his fit advantage and will still be headed into his late 30s. It’s more unlikely than likely that they’ll use the freed up space and assets to get someone back as good as JB was.

They were among favorites to come out of the East to the finals last year, but they’re capped as an almost second round team while Tatums age 28 and 29 years are set to sail by.

I think he should have taken the whole season off. Him coming back at the end of the season … you could see it obviously fucked up the flow of the team.

It was about money. Anything he did was a bonus. There was just no bonus. 

I mean the Knicks role players pretty much play this way so I don’t know what he’s even talking about. Josh Hart, Anunoby, Bridges, Robinson, and McBride are all these super role players who excel at their role and play hard all times. It wasn’t like the Knicks had the best team on paper since no one thought they could win before the playoffs. 

And that happened because Tatum was great for where he was but his speed still wasn’t 100% and the moment they figured out that Jaylen’s dribbling limitations means he takes a shit mid-range shot because he couldn’t pass out on anesthesia. The Celtics doesn’t have that true drive in, dribble around for 3 seconds and find a bucket or find someone type of player like OKC with Shai, Knicks with Brunson or Pacers with Hali. The Celtics are all about set plays and using their 2-4 size to force mismatches, for the longest, Jaylen was supposed to be that mid range chaos agent that forces teams to collapse but he’s not nearly as good at that as Shai or Brunson and he’s getting paid a supermax.

You didnt watch the season then. During the regular season when games were close down the stretch the offense would stagnate. They would just go into ISO ball and just hope to hit shots. The hope was that Tatum coming back would allow them to have better shot creation down the stretch. Didnt happen for a bunch of reasons.

Even if we think Tatum should have won it and is the better player, saying that duren and brown are essentially the same level of talent because of playoff wins this year is dumb

I’m a C’s fan and it’s hard to say. Jaylen was was cooking on both ends that series, but he just played his normal role. Score iso buckets and play good on ball defense. Tatum played Center and blew up Dallas’s offense, and was the best playmaker on the team. Brown had the better individual performance but Tatum BY FAR had a more important performance in relation to beating Dallas so it kinda comes down to what do you think makes an FMVP.

He didn’t steal it from him, Brown deserved it, but it should be noted that Tim Bontemps, a known Tatum hater, was voting on it so a 7-4 vote could have been 6-5 with someone not so clearly biased against Tatum. Pretty split down the middle where both guys deserved credit. At least it wasn’t 2015 where Iguodala got 7 votes, LeBron as a loser got 4, and Curry got ZERO. Talk about a media narrative award that’s complete nonsense.

My point is, Brown should have won it regardless, but it wasn’t like some runaway carry job like some people treat it as.

It’s really not a secret that the media has been trying to drive a wedge between Tatum and Brown since at least 2022 (the year Perkins said to break them up), maybe even before that. There are too many agendas against both guys that it’s impossible to have a rational discussion involving either of them.

Nothing irks me more than people using Brown’s FMVP to drag Tatum down, like Brown was putting up 30/8/6 and putting the whole team on his back and Tatum was just some role player.

No one claims Brown is better than Luka, or Ant, or Brunson because we use our eyes and can see stats. But when it comes to Tatum suddenly we throw that out and all that matters is accolades but not the All-NBA ones, just the one that suits the narrative. Why do you think that might be?

I mean, we were saying it at the time. It isn’t like the story has changed just because JB was traded. Anyone that thought JB was more valuable, while Tatum was guarding Cs that series, was nuts.

Real Celtics flairs will say it should’ve been joint FMVP

Yeah but that wasn’t really on Brown.

It had more to do with our starting PG scoring 11ppg while 32% from the field. Also had big men who couldn’t stay on the floor.

Brown had 33/9/4 in G7.

Your comparison would make more sense if you were talking about Cunningham and not Duren. He was the teammate of guys who absolutely shat the bed.

Agreed. That doesn’t mean Duren is a max player and that brown isn’t tho.

They could literally play him for 3 years and let him walk and it would be an incredible trade. There’s no pressure to do anything anytime soon.

Let him be grumpy. He can learn from LeBron. LeBron never did extensions he just went to free agency and chose where he wanted to go.

Except that the point is this doesn’t help them long-term either IMO. Brown is an absolute asset later too in a trade. PG is a negative value asset. So sure two more firsts but you’re getting less value from the two firsts and a bad contract (even in a year when he’s expiring) than you are from Jaylen Brown. Just feels rushed and forced and hurts them short term and long term IMO.

Shh, don’t bring logic into this. Hurry everyone, downvote and run away!

Which means he’ll be extension eligible next season as well. So it’s still mostly about the money, he’ll continue to chase the 35 percent max for longer years.

Can’t imagine how those contract talks would go if he stayed with the Celtics.

Spurs could give up Harper, some matching players, and 2 first round picks and it’s instantly better than what you are proposing. Will they do it? Maybe not but if you think that proposal from the Celtics is the best for Jokic, Denver hangs up.

That’s a Desmond Bane/Rudy Gobert/Mikal Bridges type of offer. It’s a bunch of late first round picks and Hugo Gonzalez, who was a late first round pick himself with maybe some potential. That’s nothing. All these teams want blue chip actual young prospects. Someone like Hugo Gonzalez isn’t even Herro/Ware level as a player. 

Pistons can do like Duren, a lot of first round picks, and two young players like Holland/Okorie while maybe showing Ausar as a possibility. So that would be strictly better than yours I believe and the Pistons are a team that can contend with Cade/Jokic and good defenders. 

They got a 36 year old Paul George and two firsts that will probably be mid to late firsts for a 28 ppg player who’s a solid to elite defender 2 years off a finals mvp if that’s the best deal don’t trade him.

Stevens best trait as a gm is finding late/ undrafted impact guys, im really high on Hugo but Giannis and Tatum would’ve been Shaq and Kobe like & solved the Celtics biggest issues which was rim scoring and protection

I think it’s better insight than what we’re getting / have gotten from a lot of talking heads. Vuc is a pro’s pro, I trust his word over the “sources” that Shams/Windy/ESPN have been running with this offseason, personally. He was actually in the locker room.

They’re not a bad team, but I can assure you Paul George will not be getting regular season or finals MVP votes in that timespan

No I’m not saying the Celtics “should” have. I’m saying based on the way they evaluate players it seems like they wouldn’t have