The Fire Sale

This will go down as one of the worst trades in sports history:

Jaylen Brown for Paul George: 40 cents on the dollar, and one of the worst trades in Boston sports history

Stupefying.

What is going on with the Boston Celtics?

In a town with three teams who are regularly second-guessed and sometimes openly mocked — hello, 2026 Red Sox — the Celtics have been our standard of excellence, smarts, and stability.

Sure there have been some low moments. The Sidney Wicks-Curtis Rowe days were rough, and fans still cringe at memories of the Rick Pitino and M.L. Carr eras. But by and large, the Celtics have been on the right path, giving us reason to believe they’re readying to hang another banner from the Garden rafters.

Not today.

News broke Wednesday night that the Celtics had shipped 29-year-old superstar Jaylen Brown to their forever-rival Philadelphia 76ers for 36-year-old Paul George and a raft of future draft picks — firsts for 2028 and ’31, and a pair of seconds — that will have no immediate impact.

I'm not even sure it's 40 cents on the dollar - The Brown / George contracts are in the same range so there's no salary relief here, an ostensible reason to trade away Jaylen Brown's max contract. I supose the thinking here is not having to give Jaylen a max contract extension when you also have Tatum in a max contract.

DHL Dan CCCIV - The Almost Jaylen Brown Trade

Last week's big NBA trade (that didn't happen) was the Boston Celtics dealing away Jaylen Brown to the Milwaukee Bucks for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Here's Shank taking half of his Picked Up Pieces column takling about... Manny Ramirez?

Can Jaylen Brown be like Manny Ramirez and brush off nearly being traded?

Picked-up pieces during hydration breaks and stoppage time . . .

⋅ Never thought it would come to this, but Boston needs Jaylen Brown to be like Manny Ramirez. Not like Nomar Garciaparra.

In December 2003, two months after the Red Sox’ epic collapse against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series, the Sox agreed to deal savant slugger Manny and wildly popular Garciaparra in a three-team deal that would have delivered Alex Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez to Fenway Park. It all seemed pretty done. We even saw Red Sox infielder Kevin Millar on ESPN, smiling, telling Dan Patrick, “We’ll take A-Rod!”

The whole thing collapsed a few days later because of complexities involving Rodriguez’s massive contract and MLB’s Players Association, but the baseball world knew the Sox had been ready to part with both stars.

It made for a big bowl of awkward at spring training in 2004, but Boston’s “slighted” superstars took separate paths. Manny walked around smiling, saying, “They put me on eBay,” while drum-tight Nomar sulked and said, “The priorities are obviously not for me . . . I was definitely hurt by a lot of it.”

“My first day on the job in Boston was after all that had gone down,” former Red Sox manager Terry Francona remembered this past week. “It was unbelievable. Welcome to the Red Sox, right? Manny was yelling about being on eBay, but he sort of laughed about it and got over it. And he always hit. I remember John Henry telling me when I got there, ‘Keep him on the field. That’s your job.’ ”