After trading Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, trade rumors involving Jaylen Brown and Derrick White swirled around the Boston Celtics ahead of the 2025 NBA Draft. Ultimately, the Celtics have opted to hold onto both Brown and White for the time being.
While the C’s front office, led by Brad Stevens, was reportedly not in a rush to trade Brown or White, they were listening to trade offers for both guys in the event another team made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
It was pretty clear that if Boston were to move either guy, they were going to need a haul in return. According to a recent report, the Celtics told interested teams that they were going to need a “Mikal Bridges-type return” in exchange for White.
“Sources say Boston told at least one rival team that it would have insisted on a ‘Mikal Bridges-type’ package to part with Derrick White, league sources say,” NBA insider Jake Fischer reported. “The Celtics have certainly received no shortage of inbound trade calls on both White and Jaylen Brown in recent days, but nothing got serious on either front.”
Last offseason, the New York Knicks picked up Bridges and Keita Bates-Diop in a trade with the Brooklyn Nets that saw them give up Bojan Bogdanovic, Shake Milton, Mamadi Diakite, five future first-round picks, a first-round pick swap, and a second-round pick.
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With Boston valuing White like a superstar of their own, they were looking to get a similar sort of return if they were to move him. To this point, though, nothing has come across their desk that they felt was worth their while.
The offseason is only just getting underway, so the Celtics could still conceivably trade White if a team decides to pony up and offer them that sort of trade package. If it didn’t come before the 2025 draft, though, it feels like a bit less likely to happen now.
White averaged career-highs in points (16.4) and rebounds (4.5) per game last season, while also dishing out 4.8 assists per game and shooting 44.2% from the field. With Jayson Tatum set to miss the majority of the 2025-26 campaign, he will be tasked with shouldering a bigger load alongside Brown on offense moving forward.