Bradley-For-Morris Trade Gives Celtics Another Defender vs. LeBron, Paves Way for Jaylen Brown to Start

                In order to make room for Gordon Hayward and his reported 4-year, $128 million max contract, the Boston Celtics opted to part ways with shooting guard Avery Bradley. The Celtics traded Bradley, one of the league’s best perimeter defenders, and a 2019 second-round pick to the Detroit Pistons in exchange for forward Marcus Morris.

                Before President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge and his team sent Bradley to Detroit, Boston reportedly shopped Marcus Smart and Jae Crowder in trade talks. When the 2017-18 season concludes, Smart will be a free agent—albeit a restricted one—like Bradley (unrestricted), but the popular opinion held that Crowder was the most likely to be moved because he plays small forward, the same position as the newly-signed All-Star forward Hayward, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, the No. 3 overall pick from June’s NBA Draft. That logic was flawed in many aspects. As evidenced by the 2017 Finals, the NBA is becoming a positionless league—a sentiment echoed by Celtics head coach Brad Stevens.

                “I don’t have the five positions anymore,” Stevens said. “It may be as simple as three positions now, where you’re either a ball-handler, a wing or a big.”

                By Stevens’ definition, Crowder is a wing—one who is fully capable of starting alongside Hayward. Crowder’s contract—which pays him $6.7 million this season, $7.3 million in 2018-19 and $7.8 million in 2019-20—is one of the best in the league and makes him an asset worth holding onto. Furthermore, the 6’9” 27-year-old remains Boston’s top defensive option against Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James.

                The Celtics realistically had no shot of re-signing Bradley in the summer of 2018. They just inked Hayward to a massive deal—a summer after signing Al Horford to a monster contract—and still need to pay Isaiah Thomas, a free agent in 2018 who averaged 28.9 points per game last season and finished 5^th in MVP voting. Teams, including the Pistons, will likely offer Bradley a lucrative, long-term deal, perhaps in the $25 million (annual) range, a contract the Celtics will not be able to match.

                Even if the Celtics could fit Bradley in the team’s cap, it’d be senseless to throw massive amount of money at the guard who has sit his ceiling as a player. Not when his understudy Smart, 23 and three years younger than Bradley, can do many of the same things defensively and is still evolving on offense. Smart took a big leap this past season, elevating his scoring and ball distribution on offense, while also improving his off-ball guarding and one-on-one defense.

                Assuming Crowder starts next to Hayward and Horford in the frontcourt and Smart continues to be the first guy off the bench for the Celtics, Jaylen Brown is set to become a permanent member of Boston’s starting-five. Brown played much better as a starter, averaging 9.5 points in 20 starts and reaching double-figures in scoring 10 times. Brown, who saw in uptick in minutes as the season wound down and even managed to be a part of the Celtics’ playoff rotation, has as much upside as any player from the 2016 NBA Draft Class. And while the Summer League is hardly a preview of things to come, it’s impossible to ignore Brown’s dominance in the exhibition contests in Salt Lake City. In the summer league games in Utah, Brown averaged 17.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per game.

Jaylen Brown looks to build upon a strong rookie season. (Winslow Townson/AP)

               Brown’s insertion into the starting unit also opens up more playing time at the wing positions to rookie Jayson Tatum and the newly-acquired Marcus Morris, a tweener forward who last season averaged 14 points and 4.6 rebounds per game on 42 percent shooting from the field and 33.3 percent from three-point territory.           

                The 6’9” Morris is not nearly the player Bradley is, but he provides the Celtics with two things the often-injured Bradley did not: elite durability and a lengthy defender to guard LeBron. Morris has played in 77 or more games in each of the past five seasons and no player guarded LeBron more effectively than Morris in the 2015-16 regular season.

One under the radar positive about Marcus Morris? Durability. Here's his games played totals over last 5 seasons:
77
82
81
80
79

— Brian Robb (@CelticsHub) July 7, 2017

            According to ESPN.com’s Tom Haberstroh, James averaged just 20.5 points per 100 possessions when defended by Morris that season—much lower than his 36.5 points per 100 possessions average on the season.

LeBron James has words with Marcus Morris, then a member of the Pistons. (USA Today Sports/Tim Fuller)

                In this past regular season, Morris ranked 66^th among all players in defensive win shares. The only two Celtics players that ranked ahead of Morris?—the aforementioned Crowder and Smart.

                While it may be tough for the Celtics to wave goodbye to Bradley, who became a solid role player under former head coach Doc Rivers before ultimately becoming a First-Team All-Defense member (2015-16) and reliable offensive player (16.3 points per game in 2016-17) under Stevens, he was the odd man out after a trade became inevitable following the Hayward signing.

                        The Celtics were never going to get equal value for Bradley—not when it became obvious they were looking to deal the guard before he hit free agency—but acquiring another guy for Stevens to throw at LeBron on defense is hardly a major loss. And while Bradley’s tough-nosed defense and underrated shot-making ability will be certainly missed, especially as the Celtics’ newcomers take time to jell with their teammates, his departure opens the door for Brown to potentially become a star, something Bradley will never be.