Jaylen Brown trade catches Pistons off guard and shines spotlight on their approach

The NBA world was stunned last night by the news that the Celtics had traded former Finals MVP Jaylen Brown to the 76ers for the cost of a broken Paul George, two first-round picks and two seconds. 

It’s a far cry from the demands we heard coming out of Boston, who originally claimed they wanted as many as four first-round picks for their top-5 MVP candidate. 

The Pistons must not have been interested or were completely caught napping here, as that is certainly a price they could have paid to add Brown. 

The analytics crowd (which apparently includes the Celtics) are suddenly down on Brown, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the way people talk about a player turn so dramatically. Just a few months ago, there were people making his case for MVP and now he’s suddenly a sunk cost? Make it make sense. 

The Celtics clearly had some reason to jettison Brown, as he and Tatum have already won a title together and have been at or near the top of the East for just about as long as Brown has been there. 

It was an abrupt break up, but Boston must have had their reasons. My guess is that they didn’t want to pay Brown $60 million a year. 

The 76ers cashed in and in doing so, shined a big spotlight on the Detroit Pistons. 

The Pistons have been aggressively timid 

One thing this move shows is that the 76ers think the East is completely up for grabs and that the right addition can push them over the top. They may be right, and I am sure a lot of teams were thinking that after watching the Knicks take home the title. 

Teams like the 76ers and Raptors are clearly being aggressive because they think there is a window of opportunity. 

The Pistons, by contrast, have yet to take any kind of risk in the Trajan Langdon era. I’m not complaining about going from 14 to 60 wins in the course of two seasons, but while other teams in the East are aggressively trying to take advantage of an opportunity, the Pistons seem content to hold off until the perfect deal emerges. 

Detroit has been mentioned in connection to just about every trade and free agent yet have been timid when it comes to sealing the deal. 

The offseason is far from over, and Trajan Langdon could still have a big move up his sleeve, but the Pistons have been spinning their wheels (at best) while the rest of the East is making power moves. 

Detroit won’t be facing the same conference they just rolled through in the regular season and need to make additional moves to keep up. 

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