The Boston Celtics finally did what everyone expected them to eventually do. They traded Jaylen Brown. The surprise was where he went and what came back.
Brown is headed to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and multiple first-round picks. People are still trying to make sense of it. But the bigger question might be why Boston decided to move him at all.
Reports have been floating around for weeks. After the trade became official, the theories got weirder. One of the strangest came from Yahoo Sports’ Tom Haberstroh, who suggested the Celtics see Payton Pritchard as their internal replacement for what Jalen Brunson gives the Knicks.
“The Celtics trading Brown is a bet that Pritchard is their in-house version of New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, a diminutive player who didn’t fully show his talents until Luka Dončić was out of the picture,” Haberstroh said.
Let’s be real for a second.
Pritchard is a solid player. He’s not Jalen Brunson. And no amount of floor time is going to change that. Last season, with Jayson Tatum missing extended time, Pritchard averaged 17 points per game. That’s fine. But it’s not the leap you’d expect from someone who’s supposed to become an All-NBA caliber guard.
Brunson is an NBA champion. He won Finals MVP. He’s a legitimate alpha on a contending team. Pritchard is a guy who plays hard and hits threes. They’re both small guards. That’s where the comparison ends.
It’s hard to look at this trade and think, yeah, that makes sense because Pritchard can be Brunson. Brown was coming off a monster season. Trading him for a 34-year-old Paul George and some picks feels like the Celtics are betting on a lot of things breaking right. Pritchard turning into a star might be the biggest bet of all.
And honestly, it doesn’t sound like a great reason to move on from a guy who was your second-best player.
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