Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens on Monday addressed the recent trade of G Jaylen Brown and explained that the team “concluded that rostering two high-usage superstar players whose salaries each consume 35% of the team’s salary cap ... was no longer a viable team-building strategy in today’s NBA,” according to Zack Cox of the BOSTON HERALD. In the Celtics’ case, the players were Brown and F Jayson Tatum. Stevens said, “The path looked a little bit more challenging with 70% of our cap and such a high percentage of our usage tied into two players.” Stevens noted that when the Celtics won the NBA championship in 2024, Tatum and Brown “accounted for 47% of their salary cap,” as the former had not yet signed his supermax extension. That allowed Boston to “fill out its roster with impact role players” such as G Jrue Holiday, C Kristaps Porzingis and C Al Horford, “all of whom were traded or left in free agency last offseason as the Celtics aggressively worked to escape the second apron of the NBA’s luxury tax.” New Celtics owner Bill Chisholm, who had not spoken in a press conference setting since he was introduced as majority owner last September, said that the call to trade Brown “did not come from ownership.” Chisholm: “Absolutely not. This was all about basically trying to win. ... The mandate is to win, and I just have to keep saying that. We’ll spend whatever it takes to do that” (BOSTON HERALD, 7/6).
SEEING GREEN: Cox in a separate piece noted each of the first two offseasons under Chisholm’s new ownership regime “have been defined by seismic roster change.” Last year, the Celtics lost four members of their 2024 championship team (Porzingis and Holiday to trades; Horford and C Luke Kornet in free agency). Chisholm said that those moves, and the decision to trade Brown, “were ‘basketball decisions,’ not cost-cutting measures.” Chisholm said, “We would have gutted the team for our future had we not done these things. The second apron is a real thing. I know you know that. But those were basketball decisions. I put this one in the same category, as well” (BOSTON HERALD, 7/6). Chisholm: “It’s not about the money at all. This was, again, trying to put together the right set of players and assets to win now, to win next year, the following year, the year after that. That’s what this was about. None of these were about money” (ESPN.com, 7/6).
NOT BUYING IT: In Boston, Dan Shaughnessy wrote the “most awkward moments in this depressing presser came when Chisholm made points that sometimes seemed to contradict Stevens.” Chisholm “may regret talking about the departures of Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet … and stating ‘that was not about money … those are basketball decisions.’” Shaughnessy: “When you own a sports team, every trade is a sports trade. Under this umbrella, the Sox and Celtics can insist they are being truthful when they part with big-monied talent and tell us it for the good of the franchise. Fans simply aren’t going to buy it. Not now. Not ever” (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/6).
THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: In Boston, Gary Washburn wrote there is “no question the Celtics’ reputation, especially that of Stevens, has taken a major beating in the past two weeks while dangling their most senior player on the trade market.” There is a “perception the Celtics forced this deal and when they didn’t receive their deserved return, they turned into desperation mode and dumped him off on a division rival.” Other NBA players have “viewed how the Celtics treated Brown in his final days and pondered how the franchise operates and values its players” (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/6).
