Could Jaylen Brown be headed to the Bay Area?
If Colin Cowherd is to be believed, that is a move the Warriors and Boston Celtics need to make.
On Wednesday's episode of "The Herd with Colin Cowherd," the FOX Sports host explained how Boston needs to make a trade with Golden State to become a more well-rounded team, even if it meant splitting Brown and Jayson Tatum's tandem.
"If you brought Jordan Poole and [Andrew] Wiggins in from the Warriors, Tatum would be clearly the best player," Cowherd said. "He would have a wing defensive specialist -- Wiggins would take some of the defensive pressure off."
With the addition of Poole and Wiggins, who both signed contract extensions last October, Cowherd surmises that Boston undeniably will be Tatum's team; furthermore, the squad will have more defensive help and adequate offensive production from Wiggins.
However, in order for Boston to land Poole and Wiggins, the Celtics will have to send Brown and NBA Sixth Man of the Year Malcolm Brogdon to the Warriors.
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"The Warriors get Jaylen Brown and Malcolm Brogdon off the bench so you get great bench scoring, potentially, and you get a much better defensive player next to Steph [Curry] so you wouldn't have to rely on Gary Payton as much," Cowherd continued.
Cowherd added that Brown is the type of player the Warriors "love" as he plays hard on both ends of the floor and knows the team will be Curry's until the two-time MVP eventually decides to hang up his sneakers.
"Jaylen Brown is perfect for the Warriors and they get Brogdon off the bench but you gotta do to Boston here," Cowherd said. "Yeah, Jordan Poole can't play defense, but you already got Marcus Smart plays it, Wiggins would play it, Tatum would play it, Robert Williams. You don't need more defense."
Cowherd reasons that the Celtics need more scorers to help Tatum and even if Boston wins the NBA Championship this 2022-23 season, they are what he deems "a total dud."
That is why he is petitioning the Celtics to trade with the Warriors.
"Wiggins and Jordan Poole give you absolutely more offense -- you'd still have four very good defensive players," he soldiered on. "This team to me needs another shooter, another scorer."
While that trade might feasibly work, a trade of that magnitude certainly would be a difficult one for both teams to pull off, especially in the midst of Poole's playoff struggles.
And while making the salaries match could be a relatively simple process -- Poole and Wiggins will earn approximately a base salary of $51.78 million for the 2023-24 NBA season. Meanwhile, Brown and Brodgon combine to make a base salary of $51 million, roughly, next season -- there undoubtedly will be multiple conversations about draft compensation.
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In all, Brown heading to the Bay Area as the result of an overreaction certainly is not the M.O. of Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens, especially as Boston and Golden State face a 3-2 and 3-1 deficit, respectively.
Even still, hypotheticals such as these always are interesting to think about.
