Jaylen Brown - Carmelo trade (lite?)
I know people are losing their minds because we traded a former Finals MVP in his prime for a 36-year-old Paul George and picks, but honestly? This is the right move for the team long-term. At the end of the day, JB has become a high-volume, below-average efficiency player who was arguably the worst off-ball defender at his position last season. He made it completely clear he wants to play this way (just look at his recent Twitch comments) and has zero intention of going back to being Robin to Tatum’s Batman.
People always go crazy for the raw counting stats, and yeah, they’re definitely nice on paper. But he stopped being a player capable of winning at the highest level of playoff basketball, especially in Mazzulla’s system where ball movement and defensive IQ are everything. You can't have a secondary star who bogs down the offense with isolation play and falls asleep on backdoor cuts. We are going to see addition by subtraction with this team.
I think a good historical comp here is the Carmelo Anthony trade back in 2011. The Nuggets immediately became a better, more dangerous team after trading Melo because they actually started playing team basketball instead of watching one guy pound the rock. Not the perfect comp and haul was much better for melo but I'm not worried.
I love JB and appreciate everything he did for the banner, but his comments were consistently "JB first," especially over this past season. He’s a deeply impressive individual off the court, but I don’t think he’s going to be winning many playoff series in Philly unless he radically changes how he plays. This trade finally gives Tatum the clear runway he needs and lets the rest of the roster actually move the ball
Go C's 🫡🫡