The trade the Boston Celtics made yesterday, trading Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and draft picks, was head-scratching to say the least, especially from a short-term perspective. A team with a winning culture, just two seasons removed from winning a championship, who had been without their top star and may have been the favorites to enter next season to win the Eastern Conference next season, trading their 29-year-old superstar for a washed-up 36-year-old and future assets doesn't make a ton of sense. Especially with Brown coming off a season in which he carried the team to the two seed in the East, largely without Jayson Tatum, and scored 28.7 points per game with 6.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game.
While the Celtics could be plotting to make another move to make this make sense, even though they still should have gotten more for Brown, many Brad Stevens apologists around Boston will give you a very different answer. They'll tell you that Brown's replacement was there the whole time, and the team could be even better without Brown. That replacement is Payton Pritchard. We will take a look if Pritchard can step up as the second superstar in Boston, and if he can be a breakout fantasy superstar next season.
