I don’t know on this obviously we don’t know what’s actually happening behind the scenes. A handful of pretty high-level reporters said the Celtics were willing to trade Brown. Brown had some kind of social media thing where he made a reference to it. The Celtics were clearly unwilling to trade away a ton of assets and future draft picks.
Pat Riley is taking a victory lap… I guess he won’t be around from 2030 to 2034 when the heat have no picks and may be giving away high lottery picks during that time. The consensus on social media is basically that Milwaukee absolutely fleeced Miami. The response from Miami fans is that they weren’t going anywhere anyway so might as well shake it up. And I would agree with that except that they’ll be paying for this pick for the next seven years, which is a long time. So I think the Celtics had a pretty good offer if they actually wanted Giannis as they still would’ve had decent flexibility to get some other role players to support the team and then not be totally out of commission into the next decade.
But yeah, overall, Giannis isn’t a player who I enjoy watching. I’ve never really thought that he is the type of generational player who you give up a franchise to build around though he’s a very good player. The key I’ve always thought is that those Milwaukee teams were actually pretty darn good, but it seems like there are a lot of excuses from the media acting like he’s carrying a bunch of garbage players. They had a pretty solid roster with multiple All-Stars and guys like Middleton, Lopez and Jrue. So yes, he’s a heck of a player, but like many other others requires a lot of help. We’ve seen when the teams are really bad that he really won’t carry them. Which is why the Miami trade is kind of puzzling and almost seems like Pat Riley just wanted to win this bidding war and land a big star because I don’t see how that team is going to even contend in any way.
The other thing I’ve always wondered and I’m just not sure is how good he is on defense when he actually has to play against other bigs. He’s well known for being a good defender, but he’s more of like a quick athletic tall wing player with some power than a classic guy who can body up and shut down a center underneath. So would he have solved the Celtics problem? I think he would’ve improved it, but they still may be looking for a Robert Williams type of rim protector in addition to Giannis too. I guess it’s all a moot point now.