Former Celtics rival Isiah Thomas offered a blunt take on the debate over Jayson Tatum’s role in the Jaylen Brown trade: even if Tatum had pushed back, Boston was making the move anyway.
On SiriusXM NBA Radio, Thomas said the decision would have been made above Tatum’s level no matter what the star forward thought.
"At the end of the day, the general manager, the owner, and the coach, when these type of decisions are made at a higher level, if Tatum would have said, 'No, don't trade Jaylen.' Brad and the owner would have said, 'No, we're trading Jaylen.' Tatum, even if he was asked about it, he probably would have had no weight in the decision."
That lines up with the larger point surrounding the situation: the Celtics had their own reasons for moving Brown, including cap flexibility and not wanting to extend him. Whether Tatum approved of the deal or not, Thomas’ view is that it would not have changed the outcome.
The back-and-forth started because there have been different versions of what Tatum’s involvement actually was. Tatum has said he did not have a voice in the decision, while Brown has publicly suggested Tatum is not telling the truth. The only people who know exactly what happened behind the scenes are the Celtics themselves.
Thomas, though, has enough NBA experience to speak from the inside. He played, coached, and worked as an executive, and his message was simple: stars do not always control front-office decisions.
That has been true in Boston before. The team’s trade of Kendrick Perkins hit hard because Rajon Rondo, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce were close to him and viewed him like family. Even so, Danny Ainge made the call he believed was best for the team.
The same basic approach has carried through to Brad Stevens, who Thomas sees as cut from the same cloth. The Celtics have shown they are willing to make unpopular moves if they think it helps them win, and Tatum, like everyone else, would have had to live with it.
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