The Boston Celtics aren't a very good team right now. As of Saturday afternoon, the C's are 13-14 and are sitting at the tenth spot in the Eastern Conference. It feels like the Celtics are in dire need of a major shakeup and according to reports, this might come in a sensational breakup of the Jayson Tatum-Jaylen Brown partnership.
According to NBA insider Jake Fisher of Bleacher Report, certain developments within the team over the past few years (or the lack thereof) could eventually lead to the Celtics deciding to pull the plug on the Tatum-Brown duo in Boston:
“I would say the early returns so far from what I've heard from around the league, there is not much interest in this former first-round picks that Boston has,” Fisher said, via SiriusXM NBA Radio. “From Payton Pritchard to Romeo Langford to Grant Williams. I think Aaron Nesmith probably has the highest value of that group. It's difficult. That's kind of why they're in the situation that they're in right now. They had draft pick after draft pick after draft pick, that hasn't netted them anything more than back of the rotation type players. They haven't really developed anybody outside of that besides Robert Williams, and they are where they are.”
Fair point from Mr. Fisher here. It wasn't too long ago that the Celtics were one of the most highly-promising young teams in the NBA. Since then, their development has stagnated and it has come to a point that there are now serious questions about this team's core:
“I think this is definitely the beginning of the end for the Jayson Tatum-Jaylen Brown pairing,” Fisher continued. “I don't know if that will get broken up this season. But I think sometime in the next 12-18 months we're really going start to hear about to hear the conversations about the future of Boston with Jaylen Brown heading out the door.”
The fact that Fisher even mentioned the possibility of the Celtics trading Jaylen Brown this season is startling. Then again, with how things have been shaping up in Boston of late, this might actually be a real possibility.
On the other side of the spectrum, however, the 12-to-18-month window Fisher mentioned could still be considered as some sort of silver lining. That's still a lot of time and the Celtics can still turn things around within that time frame. If they fail to do so, though, then that could spell the end of Brown's tenure in Boston.