Celtics legend calls out Boston’s ‘analytical’ Jaylen Brown trade to 76ers

A major trade earlier this week sent five-time NBA All-Star Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers, with the Boston Celtics receiving nine-time All-Star Paul George and future first and second-round draft picks.

The move shocked and outraged many fans, sports analysts, and personalities, suggesting that it was a bad trade for the Celtics. Many also suggested that the 76ers got an amazing player to improve their chances of contending in the Eastern Conference.

Celtics legend Robert Parish, a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer and four-time NBA champion, also disliked the trade, as he said in his recent reaction to it while on SiriusXM NBA Radio.

“If Red [Auerbach] was alive and a reasonable help, I think this would make him nauseated. He may have thrown up about this move,” Parish said in his remarks.

“But I’m not gonna be too critical of Boston, the decision makers had their reasons for trading Jaylen. I’m sure that Boston is real big on analytical side of basketball, so I’m sure that may have been a factor, also, in them moving on from Jaylen,” the Celtics legend said.

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Parish also said that players like Jaylen Brown are “too difficult to come by” in basketball, and that he’s in the “prime of his career,” but the Celtics “just let him go.”

Boston drafted Brown, a standout player from California, as their No. 3 pick in 2016. He went on to achieve numerous accolades, including leading the Celtics, along with fellow All-Star Jayson Tatum, to another NBA championship in 2024.

Brown received the NBA Finals MVP for his performance throughout the series, in which the Celtics defeated Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks, 4-1.

Last season’s numbers also speak volumes about how valuable a player Brown has been for the Celtics and can be for the Philadelphia 76ers. He averaged 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and one steal per game.

Along with that, he led this past season’s Celtics to a 56-26 record in the Eastern Conference, which was second only to the Detroit Pistons. Jayson Tatum appeared in just 16 of the team’s regular-season games, and then missed a crucial Game 7 of the Celtics’ first-round series, which they lost to the 76ers.

Brown, 29, now joins the team that eliminated him and the Celtics, and already features a star-studded starting lineup with VJ Edgecombe, Tyrese Maxey, and Joel Embiid. Meanwhile, the Celtics added a 36-year-old Paul George, who many believe has been inconsistent and is on an opposite trajectory to Brown in his NBA career.

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