Jaylen Brown was one of the latest stars to be added to the list of names that eluded the Golden State Warriors over recent years. Shams Charania reported they did not want to pay the asking price of the Boston Celtics. Now, Logan Murdock of The Ringer has shed light on what led to that decision.
This specific instance had to do with a window of opportunity at the 2026 NBA trade deadline. Despite being in the midst of a season that garnered MVP hype, the idea of Brown being on the move was possible even back then. Despite that, the Warriors chose to bypass the deal.
"The Warriors had an opportunity to trade for the former Celtic before the deadline in February, but couldn’t build an organizational consensus that Brown would be the right player to carry the Warriors beyond the [Stephen] Curry era.”
Would Brown have been the perfect player to grab the torch from Curry when the franchise G.O.A.T. decided to move on, one way or another? That much is debatable. However, what is clear, and what makes Golden State's rationale tough to accept, is that JB would have been an option that is light years better than anything the Warriors currently have set up for the era after Steph.
Warriors' post-Stephen Curry future would have improved with Jaylen Brown
Brown is coming off a season in which the All-NBA wing averaged 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.0 steal per game, with shooting splits of 48-35-80. His individual campaign helped the Celtics overachieve expectations with Jayson Tatum absent for the majority of the year.
While Brown was far from the only factor helping Boston remain competitive despite missing Tatum, the guy finished sixth in the MVP race for good reason. Given the opportunity to play as the first option, the five-time All-Star delivered a campaign worth remembering.
What do the Warriors have to fall back on that would dissuade them from thinking the franchise's trajectory does not significantly improve with Brown? That is the question fans and management should be asking themselves.
Not only would Brown have given the Warriors a stabilizing force for the days when Curry is gone, but the addition would have also reinvigorated the current state of the franchise. Perhaps the pursuit of LeBron James could have even gone differently with JB being in Golden State as opposed to Philadelphia.
Who are the players the Warriors are looking to as pillars of the post-Curry era? Brandin Podziemski? Soon-to-be 24-year-old Yaxel Lendeborg?
Brown would have given the Warriors a true building block for all future iterations of the team that did not involve Curry. That was not good enough to make him the "right player" for the job in their eyes.
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