Brad Stevens made the Jaylen Brown Celtics 76ers trade on Wednesday, sending Brown to the Sixers for Paul George and two first-round picks. The move removed a franchise cornerstone who was not yet 30 years old and who had helped drive a decade of high-level success.
Brown had just finished sixth in Most Valuable Player voting and made second-team All-NBA this year. Two summers ago, he won Finals MVP, giving this deal the feel of a player still in his prime being moved for a return that looks light at first glance.
Paul George at 36
The Celtics got Paul George back, and he is 36 years old and has been oft-injured. That age gap alone makes the swap difficult to miss: one side moved a younger, award-caliber anchor, while the other received a veteran with more mileage and more medical questions.
The arithmetic is simple. Boston gave up Brown and received George plus two first-round picks, a package that the story frames as 75 cents on the dollar. In a league where the best player usually has to be the one coming back in a major trade, that standard was not followed here.
Brad Stevens and the Celtics
Stevens has been president of basketball operations for five years, and he has earned trust through moves like Kemba Walker for Al Horford, bringing in Derrick White, Marcus Smart for Kristaps Porzingis and two first-round picks, and reading the Bucks' interest in Damian Lillard before they sent Jrue Holiday to Portland to get him. That history is why the reaction to this trade has landed so hard.
Fans posted Fire Brad declarations after the deal, and the backlash tracks the scale of the loss. Brown was not just another scorer; he was a constant through a decade of consistently high achievement and one banner-raising, and moving that kind of player changes the shape of the roster immediately.
Brown, Tatum, and the price
Stevens knows Brown and Jayson Tatum as well as anyone because he coached them in their NBA youth, which makes the decision sharper, not softer. The front office has credibility from earlier calls, but this one is being judged against the most basic rule in a big NBA trade: get the best player back, or pay a price that makes the downgrade easy to live with.
Here, the Celtics did neither. They sent out Brown, a Finals MVP from two summers ago who is still under 30, and brought back a package built around an older, often injured player and two first-round picks. Brad Stevens chose the deal, and the burden now sits on him to make that logic hold up.
