NBA Trade Rumors: Jaylen Brown Heads to Brooklyn In Wild Blockbuster Proposal

Is this the end of the Boston Celtics as we know them? After their humiliating six-game defeat at the hands of the New York Knicks, they must decide on how to go forward into the future.

Extension kick-ins for 2025-26 will leave the Celtics with an insane salary structure, and at the second apron, with four players over $30 million and another at $28 million. This is not sustainable. In addition, Jayson Tatum will likely miss the entire next season, so they're not expected to be true contenders.

Big-time salary will need to be shed, and it doesn't get any more 'big-time' than the $53.1 million that Jaylen Brown will be pulling in—and the average of $61 million per year that he'll get for three more seasons after next year.

With that, we have a wild trade idea from Andy Bailey of Bleacher Report, that would send Brown to the Brooklyn Nets.

Brooklyn Nets receive:

Jaylen Brown

Boston Celtics receive:

Cam Thomas (sign-and-trade)
Noah Clowney
No. 8 pick, 2025 first round NBA Draft
2027 first-round pick (via Philadelphia)
2031 first-round pick (top-5 protected)

The Celtics get under the second apron with this deal, and as Bailey notes, that would "make it possible for them to aggregate outgoing salaries in other deals."

As for the return, they get a ton of strong draft capital to keep the team strong into the future.

For what it's worth, Cam Thomas can make up for a lot of the points they'd be losing in trading Brown, as he's developed into an elite scorer, averaging 24 points per game this past season, though it was cut short to just 25 games due to injury. But he did put up 22.5 ppg in 66 games the year before.

Clowney was a first-rounder in 2023, and the 6-foot-10 big man started to contribute some meaningful minutes and production this season, averaging 9.1 points in 22.7 minutes per night. He's worth a look, at least.

Brooklyn Nets would get Jaylen Brown in proposed trade

As for the Nets, it's the big superstar they've been pining for since losing Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in forced trades two years ago. And if they're somehow able to hold onto Cam Johnson and Nic Claxton (both of whom have been the subject of many trade rumors), they would form a nice complementary threesome with Brown, and potentially become contenders right away.

What makes this proposal even more intriguing is the fact that we recently learned that the Celtics actually offered Brown to the Nets in a huge deal back in 2022, but Brooklyn declined.

This time, it might be harder for Brooklyn to turn down an offer like this.