Jaylen Brown should be a lesson to OKC Thunder fans

The NBA news cycle never stops, basketball is officially a year-round sport. It will not be long until players begin reporting to training camp at the end of September and star players are still on the market. With a Kevin Durant trade looming around the neck of the league, the latest rumor sees the Boston Celtics, coming off an NBA Finals run, willing to include Jaylen Brown in a trade package to Brooklyn.

The Oklahoma City Thunder will be sitting out this offseason drama. Tapped out of cap space, with a roster chock-full of young players that the organization wants to see how they develop, next season seems like the year Sam Presti pulls off his big move. Though, there are still lessons to be learned from this offseason.

The Boston Celtics had an incredible postseason run led by Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown, and a resurgence from former-Thunder big man Al Horford. A core that seems ready for another successful run in the 2022-23 season after adding Malcolm Brogdon already this offseason. Now, the Eastern Conference Champions are rumored to want Kevin Durant, but it will cost them a 25-year-old All-Star.

What can the Oklahoma City Thunder and fans learn from the Boston Celtics saga with Jaylen Brown?

The 25-year-old wing is coming off a season in which he scored 23 points per game on 35 percent shooting from deep, and nearly 50 percent from the floor. Already a one-time All-Star, his future in this league is bright after helping the Celtics not only turn their season around but pushing them to the Finals.

This should be a summer of feel-good in Boston. Your homegrown duo, bright young stars in their prime, just got you to the promised land and you added more depth to that unit. A successful first year for Brad Stevens in the front office, for Ime Udoka on the sidelines, and silenced the doubters of the pair of J’s.

After all of that, Jaylen Brown still finds himself in trade rumors, again. On top of the trade talks throughout his career, Boston fans have been the first to blame Brown for any mishap on the floor. Just scrolling through Brown’s liked tweets you can see various times in which fans and trade rumors have left him feeling less than desired.

Since this report came out, Jaylen Brown tweeted simply “SMH”. Despite the rumors and the cryptic tweet, it has been reported that Brown wants to remain in Boston. But can you blame him if all of this ends up wearing on him?

Former-and-current NBA Players Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner discussed on their podcast “Point Forward” the reporting around NBA trades that do not end up happening, and what a taxing and awkward experience that puts the team and locker room in.

That brings us to the Oklahoma City Thunder. When the NBA Draft rolls around, Free Agency opens, we near the trade deadline, all those fun milestones. Often OKC Thunder fans will get to their battle station, feverishly refreshing Twitter, and waiting for a drip of OKC news to trickle out.

Oftentimes, the news does not come. Sam Presti does a fantastic job keeping the darkest Thunder secrets under wraps. Think about the Paul George and Russell Westbrook trades in retrospect. The Paul George swap altered three franchises, and yet Presti convinced everyone to keep it hush-hush?

The Toronto Raptors lost the guy that led them to the Finals for nothing, the Clippers were lined up to get two stars and become instant title contenders, and the Thunder were sending themselves into a rebuild with historic draft assets and a budding star. Yet, nothing leaked out until the trade was done. Why? The Clippers or a (possibly) bitter Raptors front office, could have blown all of Presti’s leverage by leaking these talks to a news breaker and limiting the return, but yet, they didn’t.

The Russell Westbrook swap included two future Hall of Famers and shook up a Houston Rockets squad that was not far from being a historically bad shooting night from the NBA Finals, and impacted fellow MVP, James Harden. Three top-75 players of all time. Not a word.

So when the excuse of “well, two sides are involved, this clearly is not from the Boston side” falls a bit flat in comparison.

The lesson here is, that when you get frustrated about the lack of leaks coming from OKC, there is a very good reason why.