In the summer of 2022, Jaylen Brown was already sick of hearing his name in trade rumors. Boston had just made an NBA Finals run, and the chatter flared right back up, this time with Kevin Durant as the supposed target and Brown as the piece people were willing to move.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been the subject of speculation, but this one hit differently. Brown was upset enough that team president of basketball operations Brad Stevens and then-head coach Ime Udoka traveled to Los Angeles to meet with him.
“You had to address it,” Udoka told Sports Illustrated in 2022, weeks before he was suspended by the team. “When guys like Kevin Durant's name come up, of course our main players, their names are going to come up as well.”
That backdrop matters now, because the latest flashpoint between Brown and Jayson Tatum has turned into a very public mess. Last week, a clip from a Tatum-produced documentary spread across social media, with Tatum saying he was surprised when Boston traded Brown. Brown’s response was immediate: a blue hat, the internet shorthand for “cap.”
Tatum tried to calm it down quickly. “This ain’t no f---ing Shaq and Kobe,” he said, invoking one of the league’s most famous superstar pairings gone bad.
Brown answered that there was no beef “but it might be a little lamb chops and some gravy.” He also kept praising Tatum’s PR team, while saying Tatum “should stay ready at all times.”
That was enough to send the whole thing spinning. Draymond Green asked on his podcast, “What does that mean?”
Blake Griffin called the exchange disappointing and said both players should keep things in perspective. Brian Scalabrine only poured more fuel on the fire when he said Brown had asked to be traded.
He later walked that back, and a source close to Brown denied Brown ever made such a request. Scalabrine still said Brown “wants to be the victim in all of this, and this is the way he’s doing it.”
None of this came out of nowhere. The Tatum-Brown partnership was always more functional than warm.
They were both elite college players, both high lottery picks, and both arrived in the NBA determined to establish themselves as top wings. Early on, a former Celtics assistant told me January was always the hardest month with them because both were chasing numbers for All-Star recognition.
Soon enough, though, Tatum separated himself as the face of the franchise. Any team asking about his availability was told to back off.
Brown was the more movable star, even if Boston’s willingness to include him was often overstated. If a premium player like Kawhi Leonard or Anthony Davis was on the table, the Celtics would listen.
Brown was frequently the one whose name came up.
The two were never close in the way fans like to imagine. They were friendly for most of the nine seasons they played together, but their personalities were different in almost every way.
Tatum is the more typical 20-something, and he was also raising a young son. Brown, by contrast, has been far more outspoken and willing to engage bigger issues like systematic racism and economic inequality.
In Boston, he launched the Boston XChange, an initiative designed to generate $5 billion in additional wealth for historically marginalized communities in the area.
For a long stretch, the differences didn’t matter much. Winning covered everything.
Green put it plainly: “When you're winning, it can cure the nastiest of diseases.” And the Celtics kept winning.
They reached the playoffs every year of the Tatum-Brown era, made five conference finals, got to two NBA Finals, and won a championship that sent banner 18 to the TD Garden rafters.
The cracks became harder to ignore over the last year. In January, Brown made the All-Star team.
The same day, Tatum was in Detroit, months into his recovery from a torn Achilles, going through a 45-minute workout in front of reporters. Tatum’s rehab became the bigger story, and Brown, sources familiar with the situation said, felt his own achievement got pushed aside.
The exact source of Brown’s frustration has not been fully clear. Maybe he wanted Boston to choose him over Tatum, though after nearly a decade in the organization, he probably understood how that decision would go, even after leading the team to a 56-win season.
Maybe he wanted more public support from Tatum. It’s hard to believe Tatum had no sense of what was happening, especially with the trade talk spilling into the open.
It’s also possible Brown wanted another team, perhaps Milwaukee, to step up and make him the face of a franchise.
Even with all that noise, both players are still producing. Tatum has scored 36 or more in two of Boston’s four games, including 40 points and the winner in Tuesday’s overtime victory over Brooklyn. Brown, now in Philadelphia, is averaging 21 points per game and shooting 42.1% from three.
Tatum brushed off a question about Brown on Tuesday, saying, “I’ve said my piece.” The next chapter comes Nov. 10, when Philadelphia and Boston meet for the first time. Until then, stay ready.
In Other News...
Jaylen Brown Is Already Battling A Boston Narrative In Philadelphia
Jaylen Browns early days in Philadelphia have already come with a bit of Boston baggage. After Brian Scalabrine raised the idea that Brown had demanded a trade from the Celtics, Brown pushed back on that version of events, while Scalabrine later said Brown did not technically make a trade demand but had laid out a list of demands for Boston. It is the kind of old storyline that tends to follow a player into a new market, especially one as high-profile as Philadelphia.
For the 76ers, though, the more relevant part is how quickly Brown has settled into basketball. He has kept the focus on his new team and recently turned in a double-double in a win over the Indiana Pacers, a reminder that the conversation around him can be about more than his exit from Boston. Even so, the Celtics angle is not going away quietly, and Brown is already having to manage how that narrative travels with him. [Read more 🡒]
Tyrese Maxey Just Spotlighted A Sixers Problem That Still Looms
Tyrese Maxey has become the kind of offensive engine the 76ers can lean on when the game starts to tilt, showing he can score from multiple levels and keep pressure on defenses even when the rest of the offense stalls. His growth has been one of the more encouraging developments for Philadelphia, but it has also made clear how much the team still asks one guard to shoulder when the group around him is not fully in sync.
The recent loss to the Pistons put that issue back in view, with inconsistency and execution problems surfacing again and the supporting scoring around Maxey not quite filling the gap. Joel Embiids availability and effectiveness remain a major part of the equation, and until Philadelphia gets steadier help in those areas, nights like that one will keep exposing how thin the margin can be. [Read more 🡒]
Adem Bona Just Put Real Pressure On The Sixers Backup Center Race
With Joel Embiid still the clear anchor of the frontcourt, the Sixers have been searching for a reliable answer behind him, and Adem Bona is making that conversation harder to ignore. In a recent outing, Bona logged 25 minutes and gave Philadelphia exactly the kind of backup-center energy the staff has been hoping to see, finishing with six points, 13 rebounds and three blocks while helping stabilize the paint.
The path to the role has opened up because of injuries to other big men on the roster and the departure of Andre Drummond, leaving the job there for the taking. Bona was already viewed as the player the coaching staff wanted in that spot, and his defensive activity and work on the glass are starting to make him look less like a fallback option and more like the most natural fit to back up Embiid. [Read more 🡒]