Over the summer, Danny Ainge was forced to make a trade in order to clear enough space to sign Gordon Hayward. With few options and future free agency to consider, he moved Avery Bradley to Detroit for Marcus Morris.
No one liked the move, but it had to be done. Experts spent the immediate aftermath of the trade trying to figure out just how badly this would hurt the Celtics’ defense moving forward.
It turns out, it didn’t hurt it at all.
Jaylen Brown has assumed a lot of the perimeter defensive matchups that would have been handled by Bradley, and he’s exceeding expectations.