Бостон Сэлтикс 10 улирлын турш багийн гол цөм болсон Жэйлен Брауныг Филадельфиа 76ерс рүү илгээж, оронд нь Пол Жорж, Митчелл Робинсон, Майк Конли нарыг бүрэлдэхүүндээ нэмлээ.
Бостон Сэлтиксийн ерөнхийлөгч Брэд Стивенс энэхүү шийдвэр нь ирээдүйн санхүүгийн уян хатан байдлыг хангах, багийн бүтцийг өөрчлөх зорилготой байсныг онцолсон юм. Хэдийгээр багийн удирдлага Брауныг солих нь хүндхэн шийдвэр байсныг хүлээн зөвшөөрч байгаа ч Пол Жорж болон бусад шинэ тоглогчдын туршлага, ялалтын төлөөх тэмүүлэл багийг дараагийн шатанд гаргана гэж үзэж байна.
Дасгалжуулагч Жо Маззулла тоглогчдоо алдах нь сэтгэл зүйн хувьд хүндрэлтэй ч спортын ертөнцөд энэ нь өөрчлөлт, өсөлтийн салшгүй хэсэг гэв. Тэрээр Жэйлен Брауны баг болон хотын өмнө байгуулсан гавьяаг өндрөөр үнэлэхийн зэрэгцээ ирж буй тоглогчдын ур чадварыг багийн тактикт хэрхэн үр дүнтэй ашиглахаа төлөвлөж байгаагаа хуваалцлаа.
Багийн тоглогчид ч Брауныг гайхалтай хамтрагч, найз байсныг дурсаж, түүний багийн төлөөх хичээл зүтгэл бүх хүнийг илүү сайн байхад түлхэц болж байсныг онцолсон юм. Сэлтикс өнгөрсөн улирлуудын алдаа дутагдлаа дүгнэж, дасгалжуулагч Маззулла өөрийн арга барилаа сайжруулах тал дээр анхаарч байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
LAS VEGAS — As Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum sat in the front row of UNLV’s Cox Pavilion Friday night, a graphic on the video screen inside the arena showed a list of accomplishments he and Jaylen Brown produced over their nine seasons as teammates.
For a matter of seconds, Brown — or at least a graphic of him — was literally hanging over the Celtics. For the rest of their time in Las Vegas, his presence has only metaphorically loomed over the team. The shock of their recent trade, which sent Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and draft capital, should take a while to disappear.
As Derrick White and Jordan Walsh went through a workout on one of the Cox Pavilion courts Saturday morning, head coach Joe Mazzulla detailed the respect he has for Brown, what Boston will miss most about him and the need to create a new path forward without him. After 10 highly successful seasons with Brown, Boston will take on a different look with Paul George, Mitchell Robinson and Mike Conley now on the roster.
“There needs to be a grieving process for losing not just a player in Jaylen, but a person in Jaylen,” Mazzulla said in an interview with The Athletic. “There needs to be a grieving process that this guy, what he has done on the court and what he’s done in the community and what he’s done for the city of Boston, there should be a grieving process. But the … gray area is throughout that loss, you’re also gaining.”
Why did the Celtics trade Jaylen Brown?
Jay King and Jeshua Kidd
While recently explaining his reasoning for the Brown trade, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens emphasized future “optionality” after adding two valuable first-round draft picks in the deal. He said the franchise did not believe it was wise to commit 70 percent of the salary cap to Brown and Jayson Tatum, as the Celtics would have needed to do with Brown still on the roster. Ironically enough, with George on a similar salary, the franchise will still have a similar financial commitment to its two highest-paid players. However, George has one less year remaining on his contract, and the extra picks could help Boston rearrange the roster eventually.
Mazzulla also believes in the three veterans the Celtics acquired this summer. He hopes to use where Robinson, George and Conley are in their respective careers to help next season’s team.
“We’re getting three guys back,” Mazzulla said. “One guy was a champion. So, we can leverage the experience that he had in the current moment of like, ‘Hey, what worked for you guys? How can we learn from little stuff that you did?’ And there’s two guys that haven’t (won a championship) yet. And how can we leverage, for lack of a better phrase, the hungriness or the desperation that they may have to try and get to that point? And then we have a group of guys who have felt both winning and losing, and losing hurts worse after you’ve won because now you’ve felt both sides of that. So, we have different experiences in the locker room that we need to try to recreate and just take advantage of those off-the-court experiences and then (determine) how can we help them on the court.”
After squaring off against Robinson and George in recent playoff series, the Celtics have plenty of respect for the two newcomers. During a 2025 playoff series against the Knicks, Mazzulla orchestrated a “Hack-a-Mitch” strategy, in part hoping to force Robinson out of the game. Throughout that series, the Celtics’ approach to Robinson’s minutes made it clear Mazzulla considered him an extremely valuable player. Mazzulla said the big man’s impact goes beyond his elite offensive rebounding.
“I think his defense is underrated as well,” Mazzulla said. “If you look at his ability to defend different types of (centers). Even two years ago (in that 2025 playoff series), they were very comfortable putting him on (Kristaps Porziņģis) and recovering back to his pops for his size. So, everyone’s going to talk about the offensive rebounding, but his defensive versatility and his pick-and-roll defense is good. And we’ll be able to go to some different tactics because of that. So, it’s not just the offense, but again, it’s both. I’m excited about the skill, but I’m excited about the freshness of winning; it’s very fresh in your mind, and you have a taste of that. So, how can you help us have an understanding of what that looked like from your perspective?”
George was instrumental in Philadelphia’s beating Boston in a first-round series last season. He averaged 17.4 points on 48.9 percent shooting while sinking 55 percent of his 3-point attempts. While there are questions about his availability given how much time he has missed in recent seasons, the Celtics have experienced firsthand how much he can still contribute when healthy.
“Again, there (are) two things,” said Mazzulla. “There’s the actual skill set of the player. And then, there’s the mentality of, can we leverage the fact we don’t know how much time he has, but can we take advantage of some of the hunger that you have to be able to have? And it’s the same thing in Mike. And so, Paul’s a great player. And (comparisons are) going to happen, but it’s not fair. It’s just the way it is.
“Because there was a transaction between Jaylen and Paul George, it doesn’t mean one’s better. And that’s not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for the best version of Paul George. No one’s going to replace Jaylen Brown on our team and what he’s done in the community. No one’s going to do that. And we’re not asking that to happen, but we need and I need as a coach and we need as a staff and we as a team have to demand the best of what Paul George can bring in because he’s got a lot left. And he’s a damn good player in the league.”
By trading Brown, the Celtics ended an era that produced six trips to the conference finals, two NBA Finals berths and the 2024 championship. Seismic shakeups like that come with plenty of emotions. White called Brown “an amazing teammate” and an “amazing friend.” Neemias Queta said he reached out to Brown to express gratitude for their time as teammates.
“I think he just pushed me to be better every day,” Queta said, “just by his edge and intensity and his ability to corral us as a group. It was really, really special.”
The way the offseason unfolded seemed to frustrate Brown because of how much he had contributed to the Celtics. He said he felt a lack of respect from the organization, which shopped him around the NBA before landing on the Philadelphia trade.
Mazzulla said he empathized with Brown throughout the situation.
“Honestly, when some of the trade stuff was starting to happen, there were other guys on our roster that were impacted emotionally as well because their names were in it as well,” Mazzulla said. “I think the thing that’s different is obviously having a respect and an understanding of what Jaylen has done for the Celtics for 10 years. So, there’s a difference between maybe a young guy going through something and a guy like Jaylen, who has accomplished so much and done what he’s done for the organization going through it. And so, you definitely have a higher sense of empathy for that.”
Memorable moments from Jaylen Brown’s 10 seasons in Boston
At the same time, Mazzulla said he doesn’t know how such a trade could go perfectly from a player’s perspective.
“(There is) just an empathy and a gratitude and an understanding,” Mazzulla said. “The thing for me is, one, Jaylen was a Celtic longer than I have been. So, I have to have an understanding of that. Two, and I said it the other day, is how he made me a better coach. And not just as a head coach, as an assistant. My first year in the bubble, going through (three tough playoff series), watching him grow as a player there. Watching the guys grow, throughout my time as an assistant coach, he made me a better assistant coach. And then, when I became the head coach, he made me a better head coach because of his competitiveness and his mentality. So, that’s the stuff that throughout the process I just tried to focus on as much as possible and making sure that stuff like that doesn’t go unnoticed.”
Mazzulla also rebuffed the notion that Brown repeatedly calling last season his favorite suggested any tension within the organization. Some people took those claims as a hint that Brown preferred life without Tatum, who missed all but 16 games during the season.
“You can’t base it off that,” Mazzulla said. “There’s people who are going to (judge) the intention, but in those situations, you trust the intention of a guy that you’ve seen the character of every single day. And we’ve seen Jaylen’s character, and we trust who he is. So, there was no tension there because we knew the intention with which he was saying it with. And that’s going to obviously get interpreted differently to different people, but that’s not how we interpreted it at all.”
The Celtics traded Brown anyway, doing so after their second straight disappointing playoff exit. They were ousted by the Knicks in the second round in 2025 before blowing a 3-1 lead against the 76ers in the first round last season. Mazzulla said he has looked inward to see what he can do better to prevent such a finish in the future.
“Anytime you blow a 3-1 lead, you have to find a way to get better,” Mazzulla said. “The balance is overcorrecting versus (finding) what are the things that will make us a better team and how do we get better? So, like 100 percent as soon as the season is over, it’s like, OK, hey, what did we do well? Where do we have to get better? How do we do it in a balanced way to make sure we’re continuing to get better and not completely swinging and overcorrecting? And that starts with me.”
Mazzulla said he trusts Stevens’ vision for the Celtics and believes the organization has “great alignment” during such moves. Still, Mazzulla recognizes how much the team will feel Brown’s absence.
“Not going to be able to replace him,” Mazzulla said. “I think it’s twofold. It’s the on-court competitiveness, the mindset that he brings, and also just the icon that he was in the community. I think that’s also why this was so difficult. The day something like this happens, and you just don’t lose any sleep over it, is when you’re in it for the wrong reasons. And I think that’s the same for the organization. I think it’s the same for the fans. I think it’s the same for the city. The city cares about the people.
“There’s a level of connectivity and inspiration there. So, the hurt makes a ton of sense because people care about each other. If we didn’t care, it wouldn’t hurt.”
