Nick Nurse didn’t try to hide his surprise. The 76ers head coach sat down with reporters Saturday and admitted that when he first heard Jaylen Brown was headed to Philadelphia, his mind went straight to all those sleepless nights he spent trying to stop him.
“My first thoughts are that I’ve had a lot of battles against him,” Nurse said, per Tony Jones of The Athletic. “You watch him get a lot better from year to year and how much harder it became to game plan for him and things like that. He’s won a lot. He has won a title and a finals MVP. I think he’s a two-way player, and I think he’s versatile. I think he’s right there, sitting in his prime. It’s amazing that he’s a Sixer.”
The trade stunned a lot of people. Boston sent Brown to a divisional rival in a deal that, on paper, makes the Sixers significantly more dangerous. Pairing him with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and rookie VJ Edgecombe gives Philly a four-man core that could be a nightmare for the rest of the Eastern Conference.
And here’s the part that makes it sting for Celtics fans: Philadelphia just knocked Boston out of the playoffs. The Sixers dropped three of the first four games in that first-round series before rattling off three straight wins to send the Celtics home. Brown and Jayson Tatum were held in check during that closing stretch, which felt like a defining moment for Philly’s defensive identity.
After the series ended, Brown said the 2025-26 season had been his most enjoyable year in the league. That comment raised eyebrows given the early exit. Some around the league wondered if Boston’s front office, led by Brad Stevens, took that as a sign that Brown’s mindset wasn’t aligned with what they wanted moving forward. The team has not confirmed that reasoning, but the optics are hard to ignore.
Nurse now gets to coach the guy he used to lose sleep over. Brown is 28, fresh off a championship and Finals MVP, and still playing at an All-NBA level. The Sixers gave up a lot to get him, but the thinking inside the organization is that this kind of two-way star doesn’t become available often, and you swing when you can.
The Celtics, meanwhile, are left to explain why they traded a franchise cornerstone to a direct rival. Stevens gave his version of events publicly, but the fan base isn’t buying it. Boston still has Tatum, but the window in the East just got a lot tighter.
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