The Philadelphia 76ers have a pretty clear footprint on the Boston Celtics’ messy offseason.
Boston is being mentioned among the teams that came up short in Bleacher Report’s list of five contenders that failed to meaningfully improve, and the Celtics landed there with the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans and Portland Trail Blazers. That kind of company tells the story: this wasn’t viewed as a clean win for Boston.
The biggest reason is the Jaylen Brown deal. Celtics fans were never going to love seeing Brown moved, but plenty around the team understood the organization and the player were drifting toward a breaking point.
For a moment, it looked like Boston might turn Brown into Giannis Antetokounmpo. Instead, the Celtics ended up with Paul George, who just finished a disappointing two-year run with the 76ers.
That swap leaves Boston older, only a little cheaper - by $3.7 million - and attached to a player with availability questions. It also gives them a star who has never won an NBA Finals game, while Brown is coming off a Finals MVP.
Boston’s front office has earned the benefit of the doubt over time, which is why this one still stands out as such a head-scratcher. From Philadelphia’s side, there’s no reason to complain.
And the Sixers’ influence on Boston’s offseason didn’t stop there.
It started with Philadelphia’s shocking 1-3 comeback in the first round of the playoffs, a series that fed directly into the Celtics’ thinking. George’s strong showing in that matchup helped convince Boston that he fit their current needs better than Brown, while Joel Embiid’s work up front exposed the issue the Celtics had been wrestling with all season: they simply didn’t have enough frontcourt power to truly contend in the 2025-2026 regular season.
Boston tried to patch that hole by bringing in Nikola Vucevic during the season, and at first glance it looked like a move that could matter. Vucevic, the former Sixer, had been productive for the Chicago Bulls for years. But that production may have been tied to a weak roster around him.
Last season with Chicago, Vucevic posted 16.9 points and 6.9 rebounds in 48 games. Once he got to Boston, those numbers fell to 9.7 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. His playoff line dropped again, down to 6.2 points and 4.3 rebounds, and Joe Mazzulla didn’t even consider using him in Game 7.
The Celtics deserve credit for recognizing they needed more size, but the Mitchell Robinson addition has also been flagged as a problem because of the price Boston paid for a player who “can't play more than 20ish minutes per game or both ends of back-to-backs.” Robinson has had success against the 76ers before, but in Boston, the demands on him are going up.
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The league has already made clear in the past that it has concerns about player-transaction markets, which is why this one is being watched closely even if no discipline is expected. For the 76ers and everyone else trying to get to the basketball part of the preseason, it is another reminder that the NBA calendar rarely starts quietly when one of the sports biggest names decides to make news off the court. [Read more 🡒]