Jaylen Brown DRAMA in Boston?! Is He Hinting at a Trade?!

CCT-May 18 === Steve: [00:00:00] Welcome to another week of "Celtic Chalk Talk." This is a program all about the Boston Celtics, and it's a weekly program, and I'm glad you're here. My name's Steve Purciello. I'm a Boston Celtic fan for my whole life, go back to the Bill Russell days, and will always root for them till the end. Now, before we get started, I want to mention something about this network you're watching. This is called the Peach Basket Network. The Peach Basket Network is a bunch of independent people, regular fans, recording and writing about basketball and the NBA. There's a great love for it. It's a fan's place, and we love doing it. My podcast has been on weekly, but I really suggest if you like what I'm doing, to check out the rest of the Peach Basket podcasts. I think you'll find things you like on teams or on the NBA. Okay. Now, I guess what we have to talk [00:01:00] about is Jaylen Brown. Now I'm really struggling trying to understand what the heck he's doing. He has become way more vociferous than he ever was. He's every day you pick up something and you read something on the net or somewhere that he's talking. And I-- you begin to wonder, "Why the heck is he doing this?" Now, there's one, a couple things. One thing I think about is maybe he's feels that he's been underplayed for years meaning there wasn't a lot of attention 'cause Tatum got it, now he's getting it, so he keeps talking. That's first. Or maybe passive aggressively he wants out of Boston. There, there's two different things that you can think about, and you realize that might be true. I'm sure watching the MVP voting of yesterday, he wasn't real happy about it. He got, he came in sixth. Jaylen Brown had a great year, and I believe he had a better year than Luka. Luka didn't play many game, as many games. But also, the Lakers didn't nearly do as well as the Celtics. And I [00:02:00] think those are things that are interesting. The Lakers really didn't surprise anybody as much as Boston did. Boston was a surprise. And then when you dig into why they were a surprise, naturally you point to Jaylen Brown. Now, when you think about the season, coming in, they had Jaylen and Derrick White. And then after that, with no Tatum, you had a bunch of people that were going to play, and you didn't know what you were gonna get. Now, if I add this, Derrick White had a horrible shooting season. Great off the ball defender, as I've said before, great. But he didn't have as good a season as he had in other years. Perhaps that's because he didn't get to play with or he didn't have guys like Tatum kicking to the, going to the basket and kicking to him, and he was wide open. Maybe he had to earn his shots. I don't quite know. It's something you have to think about, but maybe the threes weren't as open, and maybe [00:03:00] analytics might hold that answer. But going back to JB, he was great all year and there were many games I could think of that he made big shots to bring them home. I think about the shot, even though they didn't win the game against OKC, when he hit that fallaway from about 16 feet out. Wow, it was a big-time shot. And unfortunately, they lost on the foul call on the next play with very little time left. But it was a clutch shot. It was a very-- it was a tremendous shot, and that was JB bought, what JB brought to the table. I also realized JB can defend. Think about it. In the last game against Philly, who was guarding Embiid down the stretch at the end of the game? JB. Who blocked Embiid's shot at the end of the game? JB. Now that's a five. JB's a two or a three. JB's able to defend against those kind of people. That's how the value of JB. He is an outstanding player. So now we go back to what I originally spoke about. Does he want to get traded? Does he want to, but [00:04:00] he doesn't want to come out and say it? And if he does I know the Giannis Antet-Antetokounmpo thing has been going on forever, and it's almost wearing you out. As a Celtic fan, I don't want the Celtics to get him. I don't want to see him on the, Giannis on the Celtics for a variety of reasons. Probably the biggest one is ability called availability. He's not always available. He gets hurt. He's older. He's got a lot of mileage on that body, and most guys when they're his age, they do begin to get hurt more and more. So I, I don't want him. I just don't want him. I wouldn't want him straight up for JB. I wouldn't want him in any way. I think he's a great player, Hall of Famer, of course, one of the greats in the league, still great when he's healthy and I wish him the best, but please, Boston, stay away from him. Now you begin to examine what can Boston do with JB if he does really deeply want out? [00:05:00] And I don't think Brad Stevens, before I go there, I want to just mention, I don't think Brad Stevens is really interested in trading him. I think he's had a lot of faith in JB. He gave him that money a couple years ago when everybody else said it was a mistake. It wasn't. And Brad thinks the world of him. But also, Brad knows, as he said, and I've thought about this a lot, as he said in his closing press conference, that he needs people going to the basket. So just doing a little bit of thinking and looking at numbers and playing I came up with an idea. It's a loose idea. I don't know if it helps Boston in a big way, but it's an interesting trade if you send JB back down to Atlanta, he might want that. He might wanna go home. And that's fine. He was a great Celtic. He, his numbers should go up 'cause he won a title and he was the MVP of the playoffs and all. But if you think about this and just play around with it, if Boston were to trade him for Atla- to Atlanta, [00:06:00] or if you can get back Jalen Johnson who showed he's not a number one guy against the Knicks in the playoffs, but is a pretty good number two, can rebound triple doubles, cap, and him and Tatum might be a great pair. And they'd be like three and a ha- three point fives. In other words, not a four, not a three, either one, but close to it. Tatum's played the four, and Johnson's more of a shooter. Johnson's a pretty good three-point shooter, can get to the basket. But also with Johnson, Mikal Walker. Now, if you can get him and Johnson, you're in business because Wal- he brings something to the table that Boston needs. He can shoot, Walker, but he also can get to the basket. If you analyze what Stevens was saying at the press conference, he wanted people getting to the basket. I think there's no question that Mikal Walker can do that. That would help Boston. Now, we're not done here because Jaylen Brown is one of the top 10 people, seven players in the NBA.[00:07:00] So you need more. You need more. Jalen Johnson proved he's not a one, but he's a good player, real good player, an all-star. Walker's a real good player, and he's not highly paid, and he's on a nice contract, 15 mil. Now, to me, I would take the shot if I'm Boston with Stephanie Richache. He makes a lot of money, 13 million, but there's two things that can go on here. A, you can trade him because I think a lot of teams would take a shot if he's not that good. But B, he can help. He can shoot out of the corners, though he looked terrible in the playoffs. He could do different things, and maybe he can develop. Now, that gives you three guys that you can use in games. It also frees up the fact that if you're gonna choose one or two out of the four guys, meaning Shireman, Ugo Shireman, Ugo and Walsh, as well as sh- I said the other... anyway, what they can do if they have the-- out of those four guys. Now you begin to pick who do [00:08:00] you wanna dump, and you can begin to talk about Walsh being the worst one of the four or someone else. But you can dump them and you're not gonna get a great deal, but you're gonna get a second-round pick probably for them or something along that line. And that's not gonna hurt the Celtics. Walsh is a nice player who's got one more year on his contract. He figures to be about a seven million a year player. He's a nice player, but of those Players the other one is Harper, which I forgot at the moment. But of the four of them, I would think although Walsh could be one of the great defenders in the league, he probably, him or Harper is the fourth best. Now, you can also probably get a second-round pick for Harper. But again, it just it's roster shuffling and what you're doing is creating room for other players. But also though, you only have so many minutes in a game, and if you brought Walker and Johnson in, you got Walker, Johnson, and Tatum right away they have-- then Derrick White. So you don't have great need for [00:09:00] the depth they had. Now, down the road, you might wanna think about trading Derrick White. Derrick White is 32 years old. You always wanna trade a guy one year too soon, not one year too late. And Derrick White's got value in the league. He could be used if you had Walker as your guard, you got Payton Pritchard there. He and Hauser could be used to get the big you need. I don't know who that could be. I'd have to think about that. But all of a sudden you've restructured your l- roster. You've got a guy that can go to the basket. You've got a guy that can create. You got Jaylen Johnson who's a triple-double, and he was too much of the year. You-- and Reese Shea, he's a project, and if he comes through, all of a sudden now we got some, that's a little depth for Johnson and Tatum as well as Queta. But you still need the big, and that would be where Derrick White comes in. That's the things you have to think [00:10:00] about if you are a Celtic fan and there's going to be change. You don't wanna see Derrick White go, and personally I don't wanna see JB go, but again, 29, a lot of mileage, just like Derrick White, the injuries might start coming. They come when you're over 30. So my philosophy is always to trade while you have high value. You might see Derrick White or if you got rid of JB, they're-- have great years, but it might be one and then they begin to break down slowly. And so it's the long haul, it might be advantageous. I, again, I like to see JB stay, but I don't know what he's trying to do with all his talking. Derrick White he-- the part of me loves him because he bought us a title and he was great, and he's still a good player. But also a part of me says, "Do you let these guys go out with your team or trade them while there's value?" I know there's no loyalty in that, but you do trade them [00:11:00] while with value. The last thing I wanna just commend the Celtics and Bill Chism for Signing Thomas. I s- Thomas is such a part of Boston lore in, in, in the 15 to 18 or 19 years because during 2015 and 2019, Boston was coming and getting rebuilding. This guy came along and instantly made them credible. He was great. And seeing Boston, 'cause he should've gotten more money. He was only making seven million, if I remember right, and he got hurt, and Boston traded him, which wasn't a great thing to do, but I understand what they were doing with Kyrie coming in. But the point being, Boston almost owes him. He's loved in Boston, and it's great to see him back. So that is a good, smart move by, by the owner and by the Celtics, and it's great to see him come back. Anyway, that's all for this week. This, that's another week of Celtic Chalk Talk. Thank you for listening. Tell your [00:12:00] friends, and of course, have a great week