Brad Stevens literally warned the Philadelphia 76ers about the problem that they are about to get into with Jaylen Brown. During his post-trade press conference, Stevens said that two of the reasons he decided to trade Jaylen Brown were the usage and the cap. Philadelphia is going to deal with both of those problems.
Not only are the 76ers going to have a ton of high-usage players on the roster, but they are also going to have a ton of expensive players on the roster. So, if Stevens was right to trade Brown because of those two reasons, that's putting the 76ers in a brutal position. They need to hope that he's wrong, because if he wasn't, then Philadelphia might be entering a downward spiral.
Is it bad to have multiple high-usage players? Is it bad to have multiple players making supermax contracts or close to it? The Celtics thought yes. The 76ers are going to find out.
76ers are doing what Brad Stevens didnt't want to
For years, the Celtics had Brown and Jayson Tatum leading the way. Those were the best two players in town, and in 2024, it led to a championship. But it took a specific set of circumstances to get to that point.
Boston built a stacked roster around those two guys, and now, with the second apron, building a roster that expensive isn't feasible anymore. But the 76ers are going to try anyway.
Stevens said he didn't want to have two players taking up 70% of the cap. Well, the 76ers have that. Joel Embiid and Brown combine to take up 70.2% of the cap for the upcoming season.
And then, right behind them, Tyrese Maxey is taking up just under 25% of the cap. That’s a whopping 95% of the cap being taken up by just three players.
Then, there's the usage of it all. Stevens also noted that he didn't like how much usage was funneling through two players. In the Celtics’ case, those two players were Tatum and Brown.
In Philadelphia, it's going to be split a bit more. Embiid, Brown, Maxey, and LeBron James are going to take up a ton of the usage. That doesn't leave a lot of room for the depth to get involved.
That's part of what Stevens was afraid of. He thought it was bad for two players to have the ball in their hands as much as Tatum and Brown did. Now, the 76ers are going to have exactly that with their Big 4.
So, was Steven's right? Are the 76ers running into a problem that the Celtics desperately tried to avoid? Next season is going to tell us that.
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