Jason Burgos
A bold report suggests that Sixth Man of the Year winner Payton Pritchard played a major role in why the Boston Celtics decided to trade Jaylen Brown this week.
After a couple of weeks of speculation, the moment that Boston Celtics fans feared came on Wednesday night. They agreed on a trade that will send Brown to the 76ers. The move has stunned most in and around the NBA because Boston is handing an elite two-way player to a top rival, and the return, featuring a broken-down version of Paul George, is pretty underwhelming.
If they could get Milwaukee Bucks legend Giannis Antetokounmpo in a potential trade, that would make sense. If not, it doesn’t seem worth it to break up a duo in Brown and Jayson Tatum that has been to the Finals twice and won one just a couple of years ago. However, how his personality clashed with the organization and his expensive contract certainly played a role. Also, being ousted in the opening round of the playoffs had an effect.
Yet, Yahoo Sports NBA expert Tom Haberstroh believes someone else had a major part in the Celtics moving toward a Brown trade this month: The rise of Payton Pritchard.
“The Celtics trading Brown is a bet that Pritchard is their in-house version of New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson. A diminutive player who didn’t fully show his talents until Luka Dončić was out of the picture. The splits on Pritchard without Brown are intriguing to say the least.”
– Tom Haberstroh
While the idea seems laughable, Haberstroh does offer up some interesting data that suggests it may be possible. With more opportunities, the Sixth Man of the Year winner did have a career season in 2025-26. However, there is more than that.
In 10 games without Brown, Pritchard averaged 25 points, 7 assists, and just under 5 rebounds while shooting 44% from three. And Boston went 8-2 in those games. He was also great in isolation and had a “57.7% effective field-goal percentage, which ranked second among 63 players with at least 100 isolation plays last season.”
But maybe more importantly, the bench star is making just over $15 million over the next two seasons. While Brown has $183 million coming his way over the next three seasons.
Will it make the trade easier for Celtics fans to accept? Of course not. However, it may show the Celtics do have a greater plan and belief that they have a strong Brown replacement option that isn’t George.
