Rumors have it that Giannis Antetokounmpo is headed for the Boston Celtics in a complicated trade that will send Celtics stalwart Jaylen Brown to Milwaukee or elsewhere. I doubt this will happen, simply because at this stage in their careers, Jaylen is a far more reliable player than Giannis. Sure, Giannis—The Greek Freak—is one of the greatest players of all time, and a lot bigger than Jaylen. But Giannis hasn’t stayed healthy for years, and is unlikely to ever return to peak form. Meanwhile, Jaylen is ridiculously well-conditioned, improves his strength and skills every year, and is two years younger than Giannis. The only thing arguing for a trade is that Boston has two very expensive players on max contracts: Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, and Tatum is slightly better. This means the best the Celtics can do with those two players on the team is pack small contracts around them. The new model, thanks to the salary limits and extreme “luxury taxes” for exceeding them, is to have just one player on a max contract, and a bunch of less expensive players surrounding him. This is the Knicks’ model with Karl-Anthony Towns. Jalen Brunson famously took less money to make room for Towns, Bridges, and others. That’s why I expect the Knicks to stay cool while the rest of the league heats up around trades.
Loose links
UT Austin leadership fires KUT General Manager Debbie Hiott.
BTW
I had more on this post, but something got f’d up, and now it’s gone. But I won’t try to fix it. Gotta move on.
Leave a Reply