The Boston Celtics were involved in many rumors during the offseason, including the biggest one of all around the NBA. They were deemed frontrunners to acquire Kevin Durant’s services in a blockbuster trade that would have sent Jaylen Brown to Brooklyn.
The situation got uncomfortable in Boston, with many rumors suggesting Brown wasn’t happy with all the reports. Brad Stevens shut all of that down, saying that the Celtics never engaged in trade talks regarding Kevin Durant for Jaylen Brown swap, but still, many felt that the Celtics had a pretty good chance at landing KD.
Now that the season is getting closer, we can learn about the players’ thoughts about this potential move and all the rumors around it. Marcus Smart has been very vocal about it in recent months, even claiming that Brown is in good spirits and ready to compete with the Cs.
“(Brown’s) handled it great,” Smart said. “He walks around with a smile on his face. We actually haven’t even mentioned it when we were together. We were just talking about the upcoming season and getting ourselves ready, but he’s great. He’s handling it as professionally as he can and my advice is, to anybody, don’t forget it’s a business first. When you’re doing business, personal stuff has to go out the window and can’t be the issue, so you can’t look at it like that.”
Marcus Smart Picks Between Kevin Durant And Jaylen Brown For The Celtics
During the Celtics media day on Monday, Smart once again touched on this situation, talking about how he showed his support to Brown during the offseason, explaining that when these talks start happening, they hardly ever come to fruition.
“It’s funny because I said it one time to him. We were in L.A. training. And it’s not because we were talking about it. It’s just, I just wanted him to know that he’s not alone,” Smart said, via NBC Sports Boston. “I understand that whatever you’re feeling, you have every right to feel it. I get it. And I just had to let him know it’s going to be OK. Nine times out of 10, these things are exactly that, just talks.”
Marcus went on to say that even though many would love to have Kevin Durant on their teams, the same applies to Brown, and he’s happy to have the young wing on the Celtics’ roster.
“I just feel like JB is a young, upcoming superstar in this league and he’s rising steady, getting better and proving he belongs with the top echelon of players, and his name deserves to be in that,” he said. “So for me, it was a no-brainer. And I hope that the Celtics thought like me that KD’s great, don’t get me wrong, we’d love to have KD and anybody would love to have KD, but everybody would love to have Jaylen Brown as well.”
This was expected to be the biggest drama of the summer, and even though it was a little intense at some point, now things are over and both Celtics and Nets have moved on past these rumors. Still, these two teams will have a lot of eyes on them after all the drama of the offseason.
