Boston Missed on Giannis. Here’s the Move That Actually Makes Sense Now.

The whole Jaylen Brown situation got weird fast. The Celtics dangled him in Giannis Antetokounmpo trade talks, Giannis went to Miami instead, and now Boston has to figure out how to look a max-contract player in the eye after basically telling the league he was available. Awkward doesn’t quite cover it.

But here’s the thing. The Celtics still have a roster problem that predates the Giannis drama. They shot themselves out of the playoffs against Philadelphia in the first round, blowing a 3-1 lead. And for most of the season, they didn’t have a reliable point guard who could create his own shot when the three-pointers stopped falling. That flaw got exposed hard.

Jamal Murray makes too much sense to ignore

Denver just got bounced by Minnesota in the first round, and the Nuggets looked old and slow doing it. Murray went ice cold at the worst possible time. His defense has never been elite, and Denver’s lack of perimeter athleticism was a glaring problem. The Nuggets are at a crossroads with that core, and word around the league is they’re more open to listening on Murray than they’ve ever been.

For Boston, Murray checks the exact boxes that killed them this year. He’s a shotmaker who can run an offense. He doesn’t need to be the primary defender in Boston’s system because he’d have Brown and Jayson Tatum around him. His weaknesses get covered up in a way they don’t in Denver.

The trade that makes sense involves Derrick White going back to Colorado. White had a brutal shooting year in 2025-26, but he’s still an elite defender and he’d be reunited with his home state playing next to Nikola Jokic. Denver would bet on him finding his stroke again in that system. (And Anfernee Simons, who showed flashes of Murray-lite playmaking during his brief Celtics stint before being shipped to Chicago in that Nikola Vucevic disaster, is a reminder of what Boston has been chasing at the position.)

Boston didn’t plan on making big moves this offseason. Nobody expected a first-round collapse from a team that looked like a contender on paper. But desperate times are here. The Celtics have to do something. Targeting Murray is the most logical swing they can take.