Boston traded Jaylen Brown to Philadelphia for Paul George and four picks, and this season will be judged on whether that swap holds. Three games show George can still score, but they show nothing yet about whether he can carry the nights Tatum cannot.
George's scoring has shown up on schedule.
George is averaging 23.0 points in 29.8 minutes and shooting 50.0 percent from three. Tatum is at 24.0 points and 8.0 assists but 22.7 percent from deep, so George has been the cleaner perimeter shooter of the two so far. The caveat is the sample. George opened with 38 at Detroit, a game Boston lost by eight, and that one night carries much of the average.
The case against him rests on age and the Bulls box score.
George is 36 and in his 16th season. Against Chicago he went 5-14 with four turnovers in 25 minutes, the most turnovers of any Celtic in the box score. Boston won 134-99 anyway because the bench outscored the starters 67 to 55. Pritchard scored 28 on 7-10 from three, and Hauser finished at +36. A team that wins by 35 while its second star goes 5-14 has found depth, not a replacement for Brown.
Brown's absence is clearest in a lineup Boston can no longer use.
Last season the Brown-White-Queta-Pritchard-Hauser five posted a +17.9 net rating over 35 games and 200 minutes. Four of those five are still here. The test is whether George can fill the fifth spot, and no lineup this season has played enough minutes to tell. The noise around Brown has not stopped either. MassLive reported that Brian Scalabrine said Brown requested a trade, Boston.com reported that Scalabrine walked it back, and ESPN's Kris Rhim reported that Brown's representative denied the claim. None of it changes Boston's rotation.
For now the answer is yes, and the bench is doing much of the work.
Boston got two first-round and two second-round picks in the trade, and the payroll sits at $198.7M, under the $200.4M tax line. At 2-1 and fifth, the Celtics' pace projects to 55-27. The verdict is that George is replacing Brown's points and Pritchard's bench unit is covering the rest. Whether a 36-year-old can still do that in April is a separate question, and October can't answer it.
What did the Celtics get for Jaylen Brown?
Boston traded Brown to the 76ers for Paul George plus two first-round and two second-round picks.
Did Jaylen Brown demand a trade from the Celtics?
MassLive reported that Brian Scalabrine said Brown requested a trade, and Boston.com reported that Scalabrine later walked it back. ESPN's Kris Rhim reported that Brown's representative denied the claim.
