Celtics owner admits he needed convincing to trade Jaylen Brown: ‘That was tough’

Celtics owner Bill Chisholm wasn’t exactly pounding the table to trade Jaylen Brown.

In fact, Chisholm admitted he needed some convincing before Boston sent the former Finals MVP to the 76ers in the blockbuster deal that brought Paul George and draft picks back to the Celtics.

Speaking on WEEI’s Greg Hill Show, Chisholm said his attachment to Brown as a fan made the decision particularly difficult.

“Man, as a fan, that was tough,” Chisholm said. “I really needed to be convinced to take the fan passion out of it.”

Eventually, president of basketball operations Brad Stevens and the Celtics’ front office won him over.

“We’ve got the best brains in basketball, and this was something they had conviction around,” Chisholm said. “I needed to be convinced, and that’s my job, but they did convince me, and we did it, and we did it with conviction.”

Chisholm also acknowledged something NBA owners and executives don’t always say publicly: He worried about how Celtics fans would react.

“I think you have to be a sociopath if you don’t worry a little bit about what other fans are going to think,” he said.

That concern probably isn’t disappearing anytime soon.

Brown helped Boston win the 2024 championship and was named Finals MVP. Now he’s playing for one of the Celtics’ biggest rivals, alongside LeBron James and Tyrese Maxey, while Boston is betting on George, a healthy Jayson Tatum and its reworked roster.

Chisholm said Brown’s impact both on the court and in the Boston community “will be sorely missed.”

But the decision has been made. Now those “best brains in basketball” get to find out whether they were right.