Boston lets Jaylen Brown go and bets on Derrick White

The Boston Celtics spent the summer doing something that sounds like a step back. Jaylen Brown is gone, to the Philadelphia 76ers of all teams, the club that ended Boston's season. Paul George made the trip the other way, and Mitchell Robinson arrived from the New York Knicks. The question for 2026-27 is whether a team built around Derrick White can stay near the top of the East without Brown. Our numbers think it can.

Last season was very good right up until it was not. Boston went 56-26, finished 2nd in the East and outscored opponents by almost eight points per 100 possessions, a contender's margin. Then the 76ers beat them in a series that went the distance, four games to three, and the year was over after 7 playoff games. A good team with a bitter ending, and the front office chose to reshape it rather than run it back.

Boston was close to whole all year. Jordan Walsh missed 13 of the team's 82 games, the most of anyone in the core. In the 72 games with Derrick White, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser all playing, the Celtics went 50-22; in the 10 games when one of them was out, 6-4. Over the last 30 games they went 22-8.

The Philadelphia connection

Brown is the headline loss. He played 71 games at 34.4 minutes a night, a huge share of the workload, yet our impact rating had him only slightly above average at 0.99. Anfernee Simons followed him to Philadelphia after 49 games and a below-average -0.81, so that half of the move costs Boston little.

George is the other half, and on our numbers he is the better player. He gave the 76ers 17.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 30.6 minutes and graded clearly above average at 2.51. The catch is volume: he played just 37 games. If Boston gets a full season out of him, the change on the wing looks like an upgrade. If it gets another 37, it does not.

The other exits are small. Nikola Vucevic went back to the Orlando Magic after 16 games, Josh Minott left for the Brooklyn Nets after a useful 1.07 in 15.9 minutes, and Dalano Banton played only 4 games. Devin Carter from the Sacramento Kings and Mike Conley from the Minnesota Timberwolves add guard depth, and Hayden Gray comes from the Utah Jazz after a single game. In all, 75% of last season's minutes come back: a retool, not a rebuild.

White's team

Derrick White is the reason Boston still looks like a contender. He played 77 games at 34.1 minutes, averaged 16.5 points, 5.4 assists and 4.4 rebounds, and posted a 4.89, the highest mark in this core. Put simply, Boston was nearly five points per 100 possessions better with him than with an average player in his place. He does not need to score like a star to play like one.

Payton Pritchard carried more of the scoring: 17 points and 5.2 assists in 32.4 minutes over 79 games, with a solid 1.87. With Brown gone, more shots should come his way. Sam Hauser (9.2 points in 24.7 minutes) and Hugo González (14.6 minutes) both graded at 1.67.

The bright spot in the middle

The most surprising number belongs to Neemias Queta. In 76 games and 25.3 minutes he averaged 10.2 points and 8.4 rebounds, and his 4.45 was second only to White in this core. Not many people would pick a center scoring 10.2 points a night as Boston's second most valuable player, but that is what the numbers say.

Now he has company. Robinson gave the Knicks 8.8 rebounds and 5.7 points in 19.6 minutes over 60 games and graded well above average at 3.47. Between them, Boston could have a strong center on the floor for most of every game, and neither of them needs the ball to matter.

The worries

George's 37 games are the first one. The second is the guard depth. Carter averaged 8.9 points in 18.4 minutes for Sacramento but graded below average at -0.87, and Conley, also at 18.4 minutes, came in at -1.12 with 4.5 points and 2.9 assists. If they end up eating Brown's and Simons' minutes, the drop could be real.

Two young wings sat around average. Baylor Scheierman played 77 games at 18.6 minutes with a 0.09, and Jordan Walsh, at 17.8 minutes with 5.4 points and 4 rebounds, graded a bit better at 0.77. Neither hurt Boston, but with Brown's minutes up for grabs, one of them may have to do more than not hurt.

There is good news, too: Boston has nobody on the injury report. Three rookies, Chris Cenac Jr., Dillon Mitchell and Tucker DeVries, round out the depth.

Bottom line

Our roster model ranks Boston 4th of 30 and projects about 53 wins, a few fewer than last season. The model only knows last season, so treat it as a starting point, not a verdict. If George stays on the court and Queta and Robinson keep playing like this, the Celtics can beat it. If George misses big chunks of the season again and the new guards play like their numbers, they will not.

The first test comes on Tuesday, October 20, at 3:00 PM ET, in Detroit against the Pistons.