Jaylen Brown is allowed to be angry about how he left Boston. He is just pointing it at the wrong person.
After the 76ers beat the Bucks 127-116 on Saturday night, Brown was asked about Jayson Tatum’s insistence that there is no beef between them. Brown agreed, then added that “it might be a little lamb chops and some gravy,” and said Tatum has “a great PR team.” He also said Tatum “should stay ready at all times.” It was funny, and it was a shot. My view, as of Sunday: Brown’s complaint about the way the trade was handled is legitimate and on the record, and Tatum is the wrong target for it. Brad Stevens made the deal and has said so. The Celtics’ job now is to keep doing what Joe Mazzulla said on Sunday they would do, which is focus on Tatum, and let Nov. 10 in Philadelphia settle the basketball part.
How a quiet split got loud
The trade itself was settled in July. Boston sent Brown to Philadelphia for Paul George, a 2028 first-round pick, a 2031 first-round pick and two second-rounders, in 2028 and 2030, per NBA.com. Brown left as a five-time All-Star and the 2024 Finals MVP, coming off a season in which he averaged 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists and made the All-NBA second team, per Basketball Reference.
He did not hide how he felt about the process. On his Twitch stream on July 2, he said there was “a lack of respect” and that things were fine “at one point” before they “went left.” He added that he believed there was “more to it” than what he had been told. Those are complaints about the front office, and Brown framed them that way.
Then came this week. On Thursday, Tatum released an episode of his YouTube documentary series about the summer, including the moment he learned of the trade. “I was just as much caught off guard as the rest of the world,” he said, as CBS Sports reported. Late Thursday night, Brown left a blue cap emoji in the comments of Bleacher Report’s Instagram post of that clip. A cap emoji means one thing: you are not telling the truth.
Tatum gave the right answer, at length
Tatum answered after Friday’s 107-103 home win over the Knicks, and he talked for a long time. Per the Associated Press, he said, “I don’t have any animosity or beef, or ill will towards him,” and that he reached out the day Brown was traded. He called the whole thing a “drama type of thing,” said the two of them are “too old to be having our relationship discussed” online, and waved off the Shaq and Kobe comparisons. He also said he welcomes a conversation with Brown.
That is the correct posture, and I don’t think it was PR. The record backs Tatum on the part Brown is disputing. When Stevens explained the deal in July, he said Tatum was not consulted about the decision to trade Brown, per the AP’s account on NBA.com. Stevens also laid out his reasoning in plain terms: the path ahead “looked a little bit more challenging with 70% of our (salary) cap, and such a high percent of our usage tied into two players.”
That is a cap and roster call by the president of basketball operations. It is the call Brown is upset about, and the man who made it has put his name on it. Calling cap on Tatum turns a front-office decision into a personal feud between two players who won a title together.
Why Brown keeps swinging
I get the instinct. Brown spent 10 seasons in Boston, and he and Tatum were teammates for nine of them. He was traded coming off the best season of his career. When your former co-star talks about the trade on his own documentary series, it can read like he gets to write the story while you get the moving boxes. The “PR team” line is about exactly that.
But the sharper version of Brown’s grievance was the one he made in July, and he made it about Stevens. Each time it gets redirected at Tatum, it gets weaker, because it asks people to believe Tatum signed off on a trade that the man who made it says Tatum was not consulted on.
Mazzulla handled it the way a coach should on Sunday. “Those two guys, they were together for 10 years, and they had great, great moments together,” he said before practice. “At the end of the day, nobody is perfect.” Then he drew the line: “We’re focused on Jayson because he’s with us. He plays for us. He’s our guy.”
The scoreboard version
Strip out the emojis and here is where things stand. Brown is 3-0 with the Sixers through Saturday and averaging 22.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists, per Basketball Reference. He looks comfortable.
Boston is 1-1. The opener in Detroit was a 121-113 loss in which Tatum scored 13 points on 6-of-23 shooting and missed all seven of his threes, while George carried the offense with 38 points and seven made threes. Three nights later, Tatum answered with 36 points on 14-of-26 shooting, nine rebounds, seven assists and three steals against the defending champions, per the Basketball Reference box score. That Knicks game is the conversation Tatum should want to be having.
The best thing Tatum can do with the next two weeks is make Brown’s jokes irrelevant before the teams meet. Boston hosts Chicago on Monday and plays seven more games before it visits Philadelphia on Tuesday, Nov. 10, per the Celtics schedule on Basketball Reference. That is the first time Tatum and Brown face each other as opponents in a regular-season game.
What I want to see on Nov. 10
Brown told Tatum to “stay ready.” Fine. That is the one part of this that belongs on a basketball court, and it is the only part I care about.
The rest should end where Tatum suggested: in a private conversation between two people who won a championship together. Brown’s quarrel is with the Celtics front office, and it has been since his Twitch stream in July. He can keep that one going as long as he likes. Aiming it at Tatum is the lamb chop that should stay on the plate.