What's next for Jaylen Brown and the Celtics?

Jaylen Brown has been in this situation before.

Shortly after reaching the NBA Finals in 2022, Brown was the centerpiece of trade discussions with the Brooklyn Nets for Kevin Durant.

This time, though, feels different.

Since then, Brown helped deliver a championship, winning Eastern Conference Finals MVP and NBA Finals MVP in the process. Last season, he had the best year of his career, setting career highs across the board while averaging 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 5.1 assists — a stat line previously reached by only two Celtics in franchise history: Larry Bird (three times) and John Havlicek (1970-71).

He finished sixth in MVP voting, guiding the Celtics to 56 wins and the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference as superstar Jayson Tatum rehabbed from a torn Achilles.

It's hard to believe there hasn't been some level of communication between the Celtics and a franchise pillar of the last decade, a player who will almost certainly have his No. 7 retired in the rafters one day.

After all, Stevens has been known to operate with respect and honesty during difficult trade conversations. This is a player he watched enter the league as a rookie, coached for five seasons, and believed in enough to make him, at the time, the highest-paid player in NBA history with a five-year supermax extension worth up to $304 million.

As much as Stevens and the Celtics like to do their business in private, behind closed doors, when you are dealing with a player as significant as Giannis Antetokounmpo, it's very difficult to keep that under wraps, especially when so many of the moves to come this offseason were waiting for that situation to be resolved.

Stevens likely approached it with the utmost care.

However, that doesn't mean Brown — who, again, has been in this situation before — won't view it as disrespect.

That would be a totally rational reaction, even if the discussions centered around Antetokounmpo, who, before last season, earned First Team All-NBA honors and finished in the top four of MVP voting in seven consecutive seasons. He is also one of only three players in NBA history to win MVP, Finals MVP, and Defensive Player of the Year, joining Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon. He's a generational talent.

Perhaps the communication has been consistent, and Brown will understand Boston's willingness to trade him for a player of that caliber and move forward with no ill will toward the franchise. Maybe he was comfortable with either outcome.

Still, Stevens may need to smooth things over with a franchise pillar who could view another trade offer as a reminder that his name always seems to surface whenever a superstar becomes available.

One way to do that could be offering Brown the extension he is eligible for, which would pay him close to $70 million annually during his age-34 and age-35 seasons if the Celtics view him as a central piece of their next championship window.

For now, though, all eyes will be on this situation. And nobody will truly know how Brown feels until he addresses it himself.

Teams around the league will check in to see whether this relationship has been fractured or whether the Celtics are willing to move on from Brown.

If they decide to keep the Jays together, they know it works.

Over the course of their nine seasons together, no team has more regular-season wins (477) or playoff wins (77). They have reached five Conference Finals together, the most of any team over that stretch, and more than the Magic, Timberwolves, Raptors, Hawks, Nets, Kings, Clippers, Pelicans, and Grizzlies have reached in their entire franchise histories.

If that's the case, and Boston decides to move forward with the Jays, the Celtics enter free agency with a full $15 million mid-level exception and a $27.7 million trade exception to upgrade the roster around Tatum and Brown.

If not, the Celtics could be staring at one of the most significant franchise-altering decisions since they broke up the original Big Three.