Jaylen Brown was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers earlier this week in a move that was both a long time coming and a complete surprise. Brown’s name was dangled whenever the Celtics were rumored to have their eye on a high-profile trade target for years, but the sudden swap of Brown for Paul George to one of the team’s greatest rivals was a complete shock.

One thing everyone seems to agree on is that this was a less-than-ideal haul for the Celtics to get in return for the 2023 NBA Finals MVP. Brown is a 29-year-old, five-time All-Star who has made All-NBA second team twice in the last four seasons and he’s coming off the best statistical season of his career.

And yet it seems like no one – including the team that drafted him and experienced so much success with him – really wanted him. There is somehow league-wide slander about a guy who was successful on the court. And by all accounts put down serious roots in the community and never got into any trouble off the court.

The case against Jaylen Brown

Brown’s biggest crime seems to be the perception that he thought he was the smartest person in the room and did too much livestreaming. At least that’s what Colin Cowherd said on Wednesday.

That’s about as serious as the charges against Brown get. If you look at stories like this long one from Jay King and Sam Amick in The Athletic the most dirt they could dig up on Brown in Boston is that he thought he was really good at basketball while the analytics suggested he wasn’t.

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Again, this flies in the face of everything we’ve seen from him. He was the league’s fourth leading scorer last season. And despite what advanced numbers might say, the Celtics went 36-20 while Brown was in the lineup before Jayson Tatum returned last season. He didn’t play as well in the team’s first round loss to the 76ers, but there is proof that you can win with him as evidenced by the six conference finals and one championship the team won since they drafted him. He seems like a good problem to have. At a certain price.

It’s hard to have watched basketball over the last decade and think that Jaylen Brown isn’t going to make your team better. It feels like the real argument against Brown is how much money he’s making.

The cost of Jaylen Brown

He’s going to make just shy of $58 million this season. In ’27-’28 he’ll be up over $61 million and in the final year of his contract he’s due $65 million.

That is a lot. But despite the fact that the NBA just did a round of layoffs, it’s actually a very profitable league and the Boston Celtics could probably afford him. According to Forbes the Celtics are worth more than $6 billion and generated $458 million last season. Giving that much to the guy who was the face of the franchise for most of the season doesn’t seem so crazy. However, giving basically the same amount to Paul George does.

It just seems like the Celtics were annoyed by Brown in general. They were always ready to get rid of him for someone better, but no one better ever came along because other teams didn’t seem to value him enough either. So he gets a huge contract that he deserves, but no one wants to pay him.

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And now the Celtics have traded him for Paul George. It’s a deal no one thinks they should have made, but no one can come up with an alternative for. Annoying and overpaid is a tough combination. And it seems like not even winning can make it palatable.

I’d say that sucks for Jaylen Brown, but he’s the one getting paid. So now it seems like he’ll continue to annoy the Celtics by putting up those hollow, basic numbers on a 76ers team that will almost certainly win more games than they did last season. Brown may not get the credit, but he’ll certainly have something to say about it.