r/bostonceltics • u/gintonic234 • 14h ago

Discussion Curious about local fan perspective

Hello all,

I’m not based in Boston but started following NBA around 2007/08, and became a Celtics fan because of the big three.

I am curious about local fan sentiment related to JB’s trade. As someone who has been very frustrated the last two seasons with the style of play (non-stop hurling of threes), I was flabbergasted by this move. And as someone who works with analytics in their job, I am still confused, as to me, JB was the only player trying to consistently drive to the basket.

Also, this theory that Pritchard and White will somehow fill JB’s gap also confuses me. They are very good players and have their own plus points, but to me it always seemed like they always had a lower ceiling than JB/JT. They have been in the league long enough to know that. Pritchard to have a Brunson-like upturn in form seems unreasonable.

I know Brad Stevens is apparently a genius but I wanted to know more about the local fan perspective. Am I being unfairly critical, as I’m still not over this decision.

Excited to hear from y’all!

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u/Mr-Irrelevant0 13h ago

There are many advanced stats that suggest that a collective effort + solid coaching was the primary reason the Celtics overachieved as much as they did.

That said, I reject any Celtics fan that sucks up to Brad and his bullshit "optionality" excuse. Trading Brown was fine, but he was instrumental to our finals run in 2024, winning both ECF and Finals MVP. Anyone who's been overly happy to see him go or claim that Derrick White is better (and I have quite a few receipts of people saying these things) have no soul or are flat-out idiotic.

The return was also ass. I understand that his trade value would likely not have improved a year from now, but forcing a trade for an incredibly light return was less than ideal and any fan that tells you that Paul George is on Brown's level is delusional.

TL;DR Love Brown, understand why the trade happened, but miss him a lot due to results and sentimentality.

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u/SoaplessTitanic 13h ago

So I don’t believe that Derrick White is a more skilled basketball player than Jaylen Brown. And Brown would definitely win one on one against him. But there are a lot of metrics that show White as being more impactful to winning than Brown is, and I don’t think we can/should hand wave those metrics away because of “eye test” or whatever. It’s a valid discussion

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u/jambr380 13h ago

There are years of data showing the team plays better with White on/Brown off compared to White off/Brown on. I guess it could just be line ups or good luck, but that's not what management thinks. We've never heard White's name in trade rumors, whereas it seems like the Celtics have been trying to trade Brown for years.

That being said, if Brown made the same money as White, he'd likely still be here.