The NBA off-season is in full swing, and the Boston Celtics continue to be the subject of major trade rumors – whether they’re involved or not.

Boston apparently wasn’t one of the teams truly in the mix for a Bradley Beal trade, but they are continuing to pop up in various other trade rumors, particularly sign-and-trades. It’s heating up ahead of the start of the 2023 NBA Draft on Thursday night.

Let’s go over the latest scuttlebutt and try to put it in context.

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• Jaylen Brown is, was, and will continue to be the Celtics’ biggest name to come up in off-season trade rumors. He’s entering the final year of his current contract with the C’s and is supermax-eligible, but doesn’t seem entirely happy in Boston in the first place.

  Which brings us to … “Ghost of Leroy.” The spirit of the biggest sports rumor dog on the Internet lives on. “Leroy” has hit on some big scoops in his time, most recently Aaron Rodgers going to the New York Jets. Leroy’s latest? That Brown “will be leaving the Boston Celtics via a sign and trade.”

  Bark bark, indeed.

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  Jaylen Brown (David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports)

• Leroy is and always has been a very good boy, but there’s one problem with his Brown report: a sign-and-trade before or during the 2023 draft is impossible. Brown is under contract and wouldn’t be a free agent until the summer of 2024, so technically, his departure wouldn’t be a sign-and-trade at all. And if the C’s do end up signing Brown to the supermax, they’d have to wait a year before they can trade him, anyway.

  So, Leroy might not be entirely wrong, because he never specified a timeframe. This could be a “long game” of sorts, by which Brown signs the supermax then gets traded next summer. Not a “sign-and-trade” in the traditional sense, but if a Brown supermax-and-trade ends up happening over the course of the next year or so, I say give Leroy the checkmark on this one.

  And there’s still the possibility of just a regular-ass trade, too. So to quibble on Leroy’s wording – he is a ghost dog, after all – is to obfuscate the real story, which is that Brown could be on his way out of Boston, one way or another.

• READ MORE:

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  — An injury update on Grant Williams
  — Jaylen Brown avoids supermax talk

• Grant Williams is the other Celtics player that has come up in recent sign-and-trade rumors. According to Jared Weiss of The Athletic, “over half a dozen teams” have asked the Celtics about a potential S&T involving Williams.

  So, whether big or small, Celtics President of Basketball Ops Brad Stevens may have something cooking for between Wednesday and Thursday night. Or, in the case of Jaylen Brown, the start of a year-long process that finds him in another uniform by the 2024-25 season.

  Stevens hasn’t been afraid to get aggressive with trades and other roster modifications. MassLive’s Brian Robb recently reported that the C’s are looking to trade a guard (think Malcolm Brogdon and/or Payton Pritchard) to tweak the current group. The Celtics are certainly a team to keep a close eye on over the next day or two.

• Click here for complete Boston Celtics coverage at 985TheSportsHub.com.

  Matt Dolloff is a writer and podcaster for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Have a news tip, question, or comment for Matt? Yell at him on Twitter @mattdolloff and follow him on Instagram @realmattdolloff. Check out all of Matt’s content here.

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