It’s championship or bust for Celtics’ Jaylen Brown
By Cody Rivera
Jaylen Brown wants nothing less than to raise Boston’s 18th banner next summer.
The Boston Celtics came oh-so-close to reaching the NBA Finals last season, which would’ve made them the first non-LeBron team to come out of the East since…the 2010 Celtics. But of course, LeBron got the last laugh once again. Over the last eight seasons in the Eastern Conference, he always has.
That won’t be the case next season, as LeBron has bolted to the Western Conference and the Los Angeles Lakers…something that disappointed Boston’s soon-to-be third-year player Jaylen Brown, who was hoping for another chance to help his team get past the player that eliminated them in three of the last four postseasons.
“To be honest, I wanted him to stay [in Cleveland],” Brown said, according to the official Celtics website. “I wanted to be the team to go through him.”
A lot of Celtics fans seemed to feel the same way, myself included. But the bigger picture is more important, and that’s the fact that Boston will be getting back its two best players, Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, and the Celtics will be the clear favorites to win the Eastern Conference.
With a fully loaded team that will hopefully stay healthy in 2018-19, Brown wants nothing more than to win the franchise’s 18th NBA title next June.
“We’ve got a lot of great talent on this team, with a great coach,” he said, “so we’re thinking we’re trying to raise a banner.”
And even though LeBron won’t be competing against them in the East, Brown likes to think his Celtics would’ve been the favorite even if he was still there.
“I don’t like when people say, ‘Now that LeBron’s gone, you’re the favorite.’ That hurts me. A lot of us, we feel the same, because we feel like whether he was there or if he wasn’t there, we were coming.”
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On the plus side, the Celtics could still get a chance to go at James and the Lakers in the Finals – that is if LeBron and company can find a way to get past the juggernaut Golden State Warriors.