The Ryen Russillo Show - Inside the Celtics' Decision to Trade Jaylen Brown With Chris Mannix

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

Ryen is joined by Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix to discuss the fallout from the Celtics trading Jaylen Brown to the Sixers, what they've heard about why the deal happened, and why teams around the league believe they could have beaten Philly's offer.

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and the reaction therefore. Of course, Mannix was Sports Illustrated in the Open Floor podcast. All right. I think there are bad trades I don't understand. And then there are bad trades that I understand. So let's just start with you. I know no one likes this right now. But where are you today with having more information about

what happened. I'm still in the same place where I don't think this is a defensive trade as currently constructed, let's say. If this is all they get out of it going into next season, if they don't use this draft capital to go out and get another piece to this puzzle, then I still think it is one of the more inexplicable deals that I've seen. I've seen. I've seen and the most inexplicable deal I've seen since the Luca Donchish trade, if we're being honest. Mostly because I don't believe that this particular deal was going anywhere. I think they could have done this deal two weeks from now, two months from now. There was no market for Paul George.

This kind of package would have been on the table from Philadelphia at any point time over the next few months. The biggest thing I struggle with is the sense of urgency that the Celtics had in getting this deal done and pushing it through as fast they did given the return that they got. I don't know if I'd put it in the Luca one. Can you can you sell me on that? Since then, since then. Like I think, I don't think it's Luca. I think that is the most inexplicable deal maybe in modern basketball history. I think it just was. Yeah, not having any, like, deciding, hey, I'm going to do this in secret with only one team and not even shopped this guy around who's also a far.

Right. But since then and before then, I can't think of a deal like this that matches up in how head scratching that it was. I'm a big believer in the talent of Jalen Brown. I'm not here really for the analytics debate. To me, championship, finals MVP, 56 win season, all these things top any kind of numbers that suggest the Celtics might be better without Jalen Brown. I do think as to the why of this deal, I do think fundamentally the Celtics believed that the Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, on court partnership had. run its course. And I do believe they thought that there was a good chance it was going to deteriorate

even further if this duo, this group was kept together. I do think they believed that the way Jalen played last year, the all-NBA second team, the sixth place for MVP, that that was going to make it even more difficult for him to settle into the kind of role. that he would have to play in for this team to be successful. So I think that's part of the why the Celtics did it, at least from my understanding. I still don't understand the urgency when you're getting back a shell of Paul George, who has played 78 games over the last two years. I've heard from some people in Boston that say, well, he looked great in that first round playoff series.

okay, well, that came after a two-month league mandated vacation there after he tested positive for a banned substance. It's a little bit easier to look great in a first round series when you've got fresh legs. Paul George does not have healthy legs. Paul George is a jump shooter at this stage of his career. He's not a lot more than that. And he has one of the worst contracts in the NBA. So in talking to people, I understand why they felt they had to do it. I just still don't fundamentally understand why they had to do it this quickly when the return was what it was. We're in agreement on that. And I don't like to trade.

So I haven't done a pot. I haven't done a monologue on all of it because we had already taped everything. All right. So I don't like to trade. I don't like to trade for the reasons you said. If this is what's on the table, then wait. let's get to training camp and see if somebody blows out an ACL. I think you could even argue, let's see how it goes,

and then maybe somebody else thinks it's better to go ahead and acquire him. But that becomes really challenging if you're like, what if the Celtics aren't pays for like 56 wins, and then you're trading Jalen Brown in season? So that's a really tough one to pull off. If it makes it look like you guys are punting, meaning the Celtics, you're punting on the season midway through the season, although you could argue, you know, what's the package coming back?

But if it's another team that's contending, they're not giving you one of their really great core players and the draft picks that then add Jalen Brown. I mean, that becomes really complicated and like the rounding up. Then there's the element of like, do you bring this guy back in with his personality? My argument before, you know, was after the Janus thing and, hey, you can't bring him back, could you bring him back? I mean, like, look, he's kind of the same guy who complains and has this persecution complex,

which a lot of players have, by the way, that he's always, He's had that when things are good. So I don't know. Is it going to be that different when he comes back after some of this trade stuff? The other part that's crushing Brad here is there's a version of events where it seems like people are suggesting that Brad turned down Janus for Jalen but then did it for Paul George. Where I think that's really, it's ultimately inaccurate because Janus wanted Miami, his agent wanted Miami. Janus's agent told the Celtics like, yeah, but not really, and then we're not doing the extension. I feel like Boston was happy to drive the price up for Miami, knowing that they were more desperate.

But I mean, Janus has already been vacationing down there and visiting the whole time. The agent played a major part in kind of diminishing Boston's long-term interest in this stuff because Miami was their first choice. And that is the part of the process and made sense from them to go ahead and do that. So there's a lot of factors, whether it's media members from Boston, overreacting, freaking out about it. me watching the part of my take stuff where they've got a Philly fan, they've got a Boston fan with Max and Hank, and it becomes all this content. And so there's a lot of like other factors that are making this worse. But on the Janus one, I think that's incredibly misleading. I agree with that part on the Janus one. I would disagree on the extension stuff because I think

Janus is signing a long-term extension, or would have signed a long-term extension wherever he was whenever he was eligible because I think Janus and his team also understand the physical risk that he has right now. You know, coming off back-to-back seasons where he's had soft tissue injuries, if you're Janus and it offers on the table, whatever it may be, three-year extension, four-year extension, whatever he's eligible for wherever he was, I think he was going to sign that. I think any suggestion that he might not have was probably going to be a bluff. Now, maybe he was a good bluff. And if you're giving up real assets. He's signing that four-year thing.

100%. No, we agree on that. He's not running that risk there. Jalen Brown, the idea of him feeling persecuted is true. I think where it differs from other stars is that Jalen Brown, it just seems like it's every year with this guy. And it's not that way for other stars. I mean, you go back and you remember this Ryan from Draft Night when at the TD Garden,

his selection was booed by a bunch of fans that either wanted Jimmy Butler via trade or some of them wanted Chris Dunn. Chris Dunn drafted from down in Providence. Like there was like from day one, he has been feeling like he has not been fully embraced either by the city at first and certainly by the organization, whether it was the Anthony Davis trade talks, the Kawhi Leonard trade talks, the Kevin Durant trade talks. So I think he's got a reasonable, she should feel okay for him to feel persecuted. He's right to feel persecuted. Where this feared off is that in the past, with all the guys we've talked about, it's been about those guys. It was about Kevin Durant in 2022. It was about Anthony Davis. It was about Kauai Leonard.

It wasn't just about offloading Jalen Brown. These last few weeks felt about offloading Jalen Brown. And clearly, that's what this was. Because ultimately, they took a package that does not make them a better team in 2026, 27. And unless they can use this draft capital to go get another player, it doesn't make them a better team moving forward. That's why I think Jalen Brown is more upset now than he was all those years ago under

all those different types of situations. You can bring yourself to understand if you're Jalen Brown. and you're being talked about to trade for Kevin Durant or talked about to trade for Janus. But if you've got the GM of the team that is canvassing the league, looking for offers, making offers, looking to get different things back in return, that took this situation, I think, to a whole other level and made it as toxic as it became. Yeah, none of us would want this to happen to us. It's very easy for us to say, hey, you make all this money.

This is part of the job. You know, sometimes you're speculated. And there are some players, too. It's like just because some random Twitter account suggests you're available, it doesn't mean you have to shut down mentally and feel like the team has turned their back on you. I mean, your profession is that you're an asset and those assets get talked about and more so in this league than any other league and it kind of comes with it. But this one was more and it became far more public.

But I'd say like Jalen does have like there's Kyrie fans out there. I was not a fan of Boston Kyrie. I was not a fan of Brooklyn, Kyrie. I totally understood what he wanted out of Cleveland, and I had his back. Things have been really good now since he's been in Dallas. It hasn't been kind of the thing where it's like, when's, you know, it's been 12 months. Like, when's Kyrie going to do something? That hasn't happened and good for him.

But there feel like, I don't know if you'll agree or disagree, but I think there's been some similarities there with Jaylen Brown and Kyrie where it's just not for everybody every day and it can wear you out. Yes, I can see from a personality perspective. I think the obvious difference is Kyrie didn't do anything in Boston. And Jalen Brown did a lot. You know, Jalen Brown, six conference finals, two finals, a championship, a finals MVP. That protects you from a lot of things.

And also, like, I mean, Jalen Brown, not to sit here and just make the Jalen Brown defense on everything. But like Kyrie does stuff in the community, Jalen Brown does a ton in the community. Jalen Brown, his off-the-court reputation is impeccable in terms of like kind of what he brings and what he brought to that Boston community, what he brings to communities, you know, nationally. So I think that to me is the bigger difference in that Jalen Brown forged a strong connection with that Boston community. Jalen Brown won for the team because they don't win a championship without Jalen Brown. Maybe they don't get to the finals without Jalen Brown in 2024.

I do think he deserved better than to just be offloaded like he was some kind of toxic asset and to see his reputation dragged through the mud. I mean, this is a elite guy with three guaranteed years left on his contract. Now, yes, it's a big number, but in today's NBA, if you're producing, it ain't that big. Like, from a talent perspective, it ain't that big. I thought he deserved a lot better than that. You know, Bobby Marks made a bunch of headlines when he said that a front office suggested that Jaylon Brown was the seventh best player. And I talked about this already because I was like, look, Bobby's relaying that to us.

You could argue that maybe Bobby says, this is so ridiculous to not even share it. Then it turns into something where even Jaylon Brown is responding. I completely understood why Jalen was upset. but what Bobby was really doing was he was going, hey, the market for him and whatever you think of him as a player, because I think we are more aligned on the player. Like I'd even said, like, whatever the analytics are and he's never had the best analytic profile, the fact that it's this big wing that can get you a bucket when everything is broken down to the playoffs, that you can put them on a ball handler defensively, even if you're down on his on-off stuff and what it means team defensive-wise over the course of a regular season.

Like, that's a real thing at this age. and I didn't really understand the urgency of like, well, he's going to want to get resigned. It's like, well, look, he's under contract for three like real years, not team option, not player option, three real years. Like, you can probably just run this back and not have to worry about this imminent contracting because it's not nearly as imminent. Imminent just because he's eligible for this extension, July 6th. But what Bobby was doing, he was telling the basketball world, the market for him sucks. And when I had been told about a couple offers, I was like, oh, my God. I would never do that.

And then there's another offer you here with teams that were involved in some of these conversations. And I was like, this is awful. So I was prepared if you was traded for it to like be underwhelming. I also think some of the other rumors of deals that sounded better weren't even a possibility. And so then it ends up being Paul George for these two picks and maybe the 28 pick is they get lucky with it. But I'm with you. I would have just said if this is, if it's this bad. I'm going to wait.

And Philly wants him so bad. They're all for the Paul George stuff. Like, is that the best you could do. So even if you were okay with this, which I don't think any of us are, if sometimes it's just like, hey, if they're not going to come down on their price, then I'll go look at another house. I'm totally fine. I'm totally fine with doing something else.

And it felt like Boston dealed from a position of we have to do something, which is usually when you lose these transactions. I think two things on this. I have not personally heard that the analytics of Jalen Brown were giving teams significant reason for pause. I've read it. I've heard people like Bobby say it. But the executives that I have talked to have not made the anti-analytic's argument to me when it comes to Jalen Brown. The arguments that have been made to me is a couple of them by multiple teams.

one is the concern that if Jalen Brown is not happy in his role playing opposite Jason Tatum in Boston, will he be happy in whatever role we're going to put him in? So if you're a team that's a contender and you've already got a franchise player, like is Jalen Brown going to be happy being the 1A, 1B to that franchise player? There was some concern about that from the teams that I've talked to. Like, just looking at these teams looking at it from the outside, saying, well, he's got a, seems like he's got a great thing there. Like they won a championship a couple of years ago. They've been wildly successful.

On some level, he clearly wants more. And he was obviously happy with what happened last year, as he said, on his Twitch stream. That gave some teams that I talked to a little bit of hesitation. Like, we're trying to build some now. The Celtics want a player. They want a couple of first round picks. if we're not certain we're getting this guy a happy verse of this guy for the next four years, well, we're going to hesitate a little bit on this.

The other thing, and this goes back to what I said at the beginning, this happened fast. This happened really fast. I talked to one team, I'm not going to say who it is, but I talked to one team that absolutely made an offer to Boston for Jalen Browell's a good team that made an offer to Boston. And I talked to this, a person in that front office after the deal with Philadelphia was consummated. And they were stunned. Mostly because they knew their offer wasn't very good. But they told me, this person told me, that the offer would have gotten better.

Like that they were like Raptors testing the fence here. Raptors is not a hint there. It wasn't Toronto. But they were probing. They already moved their Jalen Brown. They did their thing. But they were kind of probing to see how low can they go? Look, nobody's going to come at you with their best offer right away,

especially when the perception is that you're trying to make a deal and you're desperate to get out. there. Like you've got to show people that you've got some stomach here. Like you've got to show teams that you are willing to either go into the season with Jalen Brown or that give off the perception. Now you do have other offers that you're going to. You've got to create a market for a player of this type. And this team, the person this team told me, he's like, look, we made them an offer. This person told me they thought their offer was better than what the Celtics took anyway. But they told me they made an offer. And if this has a person, had gone on a little bit longer, they would have beefed up that offer, enhanced that offer to

make it a little bit better. This person was really surprised, and I don't think he's the only one that was surprised. He certainly wasn't the only one. I was surprised they were that the Celtics took Paul George, his god-offal contract, and two first-round picks in exchange for Jaylen Brown. One of the explanations that I got was if you look at Jaylen and he just came in sixth in the MVP and if we get back to full form Tatum he's never going to have these numbers in that pairing and he'll have one less year on the deal that imagine if you're running this back in a year if this is how bad the offers are now what's that market going to be like for a year and I it was a different team so I was I was kind of pushing back because they were in favor of it and they

probably don't like Jalen Brown a ton and they they were in favor of like you You can't bring them back. It's kind of a pain in the ass. It's going to be even worse with this. You know, like, you might as well just move on and the deals are probably going to get worse, considering what this guy just did. I don't know.

I mean, again, it's all of us trying to understand it, but that was at least one position that I was given. I think that, look, there's a lot of focus being on how this season ended with Boston. You know, they get to the playoffs, they get beat in the first round. It's a hideous ending to a very average Philadelphia team. But from what I've been told, the data points that the Celtics have been looking at have been more about the 24, 25 season, which was a good season, but obviously one that ended badly against the New York Dix. Like, to them, the people I've talked to, the warning signs that they were looking at were more based on that.

season that they believed they needed some kind of change and that it wasn't going to get measurably better. I just don't know how you can do a deal like this and make a coherent, believable argument that there is a pathway to get measurably better. Like maybe you're right. The offers weren't going to get better than they were right now for Jalen Brown. Maybe. Maybe Maybe you're right. I think you are that the numbers were going to decline. That any tension that exists, and the tension was going to go up no matter what based on this offseason. But a tension that previously existed was only going to get worse. To me, that still doesn't justify doing a deal like this for the kind of return that they got. Like nothing, nothing, I've had

kind of these debates where it's like, I'm hearing what you're saying. I guess. it, but I don't get it. And look, what I do, and you can tell me if you agree with this, because it's in the water supply that Bill Chisholm is cheap and private equity sucks and maybe all those things ultimately turn out to be true, I don't believe that's fundamentally at play here. Like, they cut salaries last year because they should have because they weren't a championship team, and there are real basketball reasons to get under these tax aprons. I don't know how you look at this deal for Jalen Brown, Paul George, and say it's a financially motivated decision other than Paul George has one less year left on his contract. They're still paying a pile of

money next year and we'll owe a pile of money next year. That doesn't change because of this contract. So the one thing I guess I was convinced of in my conversations is that this is not financially motivated, but the basketball arguments have just been in and outside the organization. It has I've just been nonsensical to me and I don't buy them one bit. Enjoy your holiday, man. Thanks for doing this. You got it. Chill.