Grant Williams isn’t buying the idea that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have some kind of broken relationship.
As someone who spent years around both stars with the Boston Celtics, Williams has seen enough to push back on the chatter that the two championship-winning teammates were ever at odds. With Tatum now on the Boston Celtics and Brown on the Philadelphia 76ers, the conversation around their relationship has picked up again - but Williams says the personal side of it has been overstated.
He pointed to the way the two players pushed each other while sharing the floor in Boston, saying their connection was built on mutual respect and a comfort level that extended beyond the game.
"You can bring the best out of someone else beside you. And I think that’s what it was for those two, that they had respect for one another, they enjoyed being around one another when they’re on the court, as well as they didn’t have any disdain for one another off the floor. So that’s something I can just vividly say is that I don’t think those guys disliked each other at all," Williams said about the Tatum and Brown dynamic on SiriusXM NBA Radio.
The rivalry angle is real now, especially with both teams in the Atlantic Division and projecting as top Eastern Conference clubs. That adds a new edge to Celtics-76ers matchups moving forward, even if Williams insists there’s no personal feud underneath it. For him, the relationship between Tatum and Brown was never the problem.
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Former Sixers Fan Favorite Suddenly Has A Real NBA Lifeline
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For Philadelphia fans, Niang is still an easy one to remember from his time in the city, which is part of why his next move carries a little extra interest. He also missed all of last season while recovering from a foot injury, so any opportunity now would be about more than just finding a new uniform. It would be a chance to prove there is still real NBA value left in his game. [Read more 🡒]