For starters, I do not get the outrage for this trade for Boston on paper. Jaylen Brown is clearly overpayed and doesn't make the Celtics go a as team, that's Tatum and White. On-off splits, the simplest yet still effective form of evaluation of a player statically, has almost never liked Jaylen Brown over a career-long sample. This year, even without Tatum on the floor for the majority of it, the Celtics were more efficient as a team without him once again. With this trade, they get to pair their star duo with a player in Paul George who's a superior defender and shooter while under contract for less money and years. His on-off splits run the inverse of Brown's, constantly positive throughout his career and continues to this day. Even as a scorer and playmaker, while the load for Paul George can take on at this point is lower than Brown's overall, he's at least as efficient. Also importantly, he still takes on enough to where White isn't forced to take too many shots again outside his scoring capabilities and doesn't cripple Boston's playmaking abilities. Rim pressure, transition offense and offensive rebounding is a legit concern with Paul George now. However, with Tatum's return from injury to start the year this time, those concerns will be dampened. This 100% makes Boston better on defense and at least as good on offense, if not better with Tatum running the show even more. Their #1 concern is battling the inevitable aging curve and injuries now. If the skills of each player remain around the level they're at currently, they'll be a real contender again.

On the flip side, the 76'ers were in a tricky spot to contend. The Maxey-Embiid duo, while great, was exploited in the playoffs defensively by the Knicks constantly. On offense, outside of Embiid and a hot Kelly Oubre, they didn't get any efficient scoring in larger roles in the offense as even Maxey faltered. They needed some way to boost the offense and Jaylen Brown can score effectively in a larger role. This allows everyone else to take on easier roles within the offense for their skillset. If Embiid ages out of the role and goes into a more defensive-primary one, Brown can pick up more responsibility. For a team needing a perimeter scoring punch badly, this trade makes sense, but the price is concerning.

For one, in a vacuum, Brown as a player isn't a major upgrade over George last year. He even arguably got outplayed by George when they matched up against eachother in the first round. Secondly, that contract limits their flexibility severely for another season, so if this doesn't work out, they'll be vulnerable to sinking into just outside play-in range. There will be no consistent pick control as they gave up multiple valuable picks in this trade too. Lastly, defense was a major issue for the 76'ers. Between the two players, Paul George is still the better defender, so how do they address that now with less flexibility?

As of now, I think Boston clearly got a solid deal as their team likely improves short term, less payroll used to do so and got two quality picks to play with to continue adding to what they got. For the 76'ers, if they can address their defensive concerns and their younger role players continue their growth into more competent ones, this could work for them too. An understandable risk they took here, who knows what else will be on the market for them, but I'm more doubtful on it being the correct move for them.