To trade the player on a team with the worst contract on its roster, one must first agree that the deal in question is in fact a bad one. So while we disagree with the notion that All-NBA forward Jaylen Brown is that player for the Boston Celtics after his supermax contract extension, we will admit it could end up looking like it if he doesn’t keep adding to his game if “worst” is a flexible descriptor.
That aside, a recent article by Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley identifies a trade to offload the worst deal on each team in the league and posits a swap of Brown for Cleveland Cavaliers wing Donovan Mitchell. We take issue with this for reasons besides what we’ve ranted about above. The proposal, Brown, Payton Pritchard, and a 2024 first-round pick, would be an overpay in our opinion even sans the draft capital given Mitchell’s poor defense and lack of postseason success.
Buy Celtics TicketsFor Buckley, the selling point is the “wealth of shot-creation (and possibly enough passing)” Mitchell can provide, but what he lacks on the other end of the court (bracketing whether we buy this is a “no-brainer” worst deal to trade) makes this option uninteresting even if Brown doesn’t get better than he is now.
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