If I had a nickel for every time a Boston sports team traded one of their top homegrown stars in the midst of his prime to a rival instead of just paying him two years after winning a championship in this decade, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?
In 2020, the Boston Red Sox traded Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs, and Connor Wong. This trade was considered a colossal mistake at the time, and it's only aged poorly as Betts has won three titles in Los Angeles while Verdugo, Downs, and Wong haven't amounted to anything.
(To be fair, Wong is still on the team and is decent. But if he's the best player you got in a trade for a prime Mookie Betts, that's just malpractice.)
Fast forward over six years, and the Boston Celtics just traded a prime Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for an 80-year-old, broken-down Paul George and some useless picks.
We already know how "the Mookie trade" went for Boston (spoiler alert: not well), and it wouldn't be a shock if the Brown trade follows that same direction.
The Jaylen Brown trade is drawing comps to the Mookie Betts trade
I've seen a lot of people online say the Brown trade is just as bad, if not worse, than the Betts trade. And while I won't go that far (Betts was at least an MVP and arguably a top-three player in baseball at the time), I do think this trade will be talked about in the same conversation years down the line.
Neither trade needed to happen. And maybe it's easy for me to say since it's not my money (and I don't know what was going on behind the scenes in either instance), but it doesn't make much sense to just not pay your guys (especially after they helped you win a championship just two years before) and rob yourself of the chance to just run it back and figure it out later.
The Mookie trade has paid dividends for the Dodgers while the Red Sox are still dealing with the consequences. Outside of the 2021 season (when they made it to the ALCS) and the 2025 season (Wild Card appearance, though they lost to the New York Yankees anyway), every season since the trade has been borderline disastrous for the Red Sox.
I don't know if the Celtics are going to have the same fate the Red Sox did, but I do believe we're going to look at this trade as probably the worst one in franchise history. And I'm not too thrilled to see what their future will look like.
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