Brad Stevens wanted to set the record straight. During his Monday press conference, the Celtics president of basketball operations pushed back on reports that analytics drove Boston’s decision to trade Jaylen Brown to the 76ers. The narrative had been floating around for days: that data and numbers were the real culprit behind the move that sent a franchise cornerstone out of town.
Stevens wasn’t having it.
“Every ounce of information that you have and you put it all together. Right? For me, Mike (Zarren) and his staff might get mad at me, they do every day – I would say that was a small piece of information.”
That quote, first reported by ClutchPoints, directly contradicts some of the chatter that followed the trade. In recent weeks, various outlets suggested advanced metrics played a heavy hand in Boston’s calculus — that Brown’s on-off numbers or certain efficiency splits made him expendable in their eyes.
Stevens acknowledged analytics were part of the conversation. They just weren’t the headline.
The trade itself wasn’t easy. Stevens said as much on Monday. But he also made it clear the franchise is ready to move forward. The 2026-27 season will look different without Brown in green, and Stevens sounded like a guy already thinking about the next chapter rather than second-guessing the one he just wrote.
Mike Zarren, Boston’s longtime analytics guru, didn’t comment publicly. Teammates probably expected him to joke about the whole thing later.
What’s interesting here is how much the public conversation around NBA front offices has shifted. Ten years ago, a team president dismissing analytics as a small factor would’ve sounded defensive or old-school. Now? It almost sounds like Stevens is trying to protect his analytics staff from the backlash. If the trade blows up — and there’s a real chance it could — nobody wants to be the guy whose spreadsheet cost the team a borderline superstar.
Brown’s camp hasn’t said much since the deal went through. Philadelphia, meanwhile, is thrilled. They got a two-way wing they can build around without giving up Daryl Morey’s firstborn child.
For Boston, the real test starts in October. Without Brown on the wing, the offensive load shifts. The defense shifts. The whole identity shifts. Stevens said he’s looking forward to a new era. We’re about to find out if that era comes with a trophy or a rebuild.
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