Twelve days after the Boston Celtics sent Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers, the losing bidders are still comparing notes. Speaking Friday on CLNS Media’s Celtics Daily with Bobby Manning, HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto reported that the teams involved in the negotiations did not see Philadelphia’s package coming. “The teams that were in it were surprised that their offers weren’t as good,” Scotto said. “Some teams had players that could’ve made more sense, but not as much draft capital.”
That one sentence explains the deal Boston actually made better than most of the two weeks of analysis that followed it. The return — Paul George, a 2028 first-round pick, an unprotected 2031 first and two seconds — was widely graded as light on talent for an All-NBA wing in his prime. But if Scotto’s reporting is right, Brad Stevens was never running a talent auction. He was running a draft-capital auction, and the player-centric offers lost on the criterion that mattered.
The surrounding reporting supports that reading. Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic reported this week that Minnesota explored a Brown deal and found Boston asking for Rudy Gobert plus heavy draft compensation. Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated said in early July that one bidding team was stunned by the Philadelphia deal and believed its own offer “would have gotten better” with time — an admission that it, like others, was negotiating upward slowly while Philadelphia put its best capital on the table.
From a front-office standpoint, the criticism of the return and the logic of the return are the same fact viewed from different chairs. Stevens traded certainty for optionality: an expiring veteran in George, plus picks that can either seed the next contender around Jayson Tatum or be repackaged for the next disgruntled star. Rival executives wanted to sell Boston players. Boston wanted the flexibility to choose its players later.
The fantasy reading here is indirect but real. Boston chose picks over win-now talent, which means no incoming scorer competes with Tatum for touches — his usage ceiling stays untouched — and George enters the season as the clear second option for as long as he is healthy and in green. Managers drafting George at his discounted cost are effectively betting on the bridge year lasting the whole year.
