We gotta talk about the story that never really ends.
Jayson Tatum versus Jalen Brown, uh, former teammates, friends-ish, now frenemies.
Um, we all know about the back and forth.
Uh, Jayson Tatum had a video that was out there last week, uh, from his documentary where he suggested he was taken aback by the Jalen Brown trade.
Jalen Brown replied with a cap.
Jason Tatum tried to diffuse it and said, We’re not Shaq and Kobe.
Jalen Brown said they don’t have beef, but they’ve got biscuits and gravy, lamb chops and gravy.
I don’t remember anymore what he said.
Um, Jason Tatum declined to comment further, uh, when asked about Jalen Brown’s comments, and Jalen Brown just, uh, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, I believe, uh, kind of made some final comments where he was reacting to.
Our good friend Brian Scalabrini, who entered the fray and said that Jalen Brown requested to be traded.
Jalen Brown said he never requested to be traded.
He never had any kind of list of demands from the Celtics, basically suggesting the Celtics did this all on their own.
So you and I haven’t talked since this story kind of mushroomed into what it is now.
Uh, give me your take on, you know, Jalen versus Jason at this stage.
I mean, I, I think it’s crazy.
I think it kind of got out of hand.
I understand there’s some back and forth, you know, a little bit of bickering.
I understand Jalen Brown, his frustrations might come out as aggressive more so than hurt, you know.
I, I, I understand.
That, you know, him defending himself has gotten lost in the fact of just being like, bro, I, I, I was hurt.
I’ve, I tried my butt off.
I don’t understand why I got traded.
I don’t understand when we go further why these narratives got traded.
Most importantly, people I wrote with, he, he feels in this narrative like, hey, Nobody had my back.
Y’all just watched them just, you know what I mean?
Just Godfathered me, just stabbed me in the back and we call it a day and, and, and we say this and that.
So I understand the emotions because it’s, it’s kind of real and raw.
You’re like, damn, they really traded me and that really hurts.
Um, I think JT says something that, that I, I definitely think, you know, really matters now, which is We’re doing too much talking about the negative and not about like enough talking about what we did together.
All the games we won, all the accomplishments we had, the accolades we reached.
And that’s just the truth.
Like I don’t want to hear about a drama.
I think they’re both good individuals.
I think they’re both great hoopers.
I think they’re both talented people.
I think they’re both cultural icons.
And when you sit still, we’re going on, on The scream and it’s not even so much, we’re talking drama more so in these guys’ legacy in the prime of their career.
And once again, this is one of the best duos we’ve seen in a while.
So, to sum this up as some type of drama, I just think it’s just getting old.
I think everybody needs to remove themselves from it and hopefully the final comments are the final comments and, you know, when it comes to this game of basketball and business, you know, it’s timing and sometimes things just don’t make sense and And money has to add up, and whether you think so or not, that’s just what occurs.
Yeah, the accomplishments between the two are impressive .
5 conference finals together, 2 NBA finals, 1 championship.
That’s not nothing.
Not a lot of duos have accomplished that.
Not a lot of trios.
Have accomplished that in their time together.
So it is impressive.
My take on this, Evan, has been that I think Jalen Brown has legit beef with the Celtics because really since he was drafted, uh, the Celtics have been either talking about trading him or outright trying to trade him.
You go back to draft night 2017.
If you remember that night when Jalen Brown’s selection was booed on draft night by the fans at the TD Garden because many of them wanted.
The Celtics to trade the rights to Jalen Brown for Jimmy Butler, and some of them actually wanted Chris Dunn, who played right down the street.
I remember that every year since, or virtually every year since, Jalen Brown’s name has been in trade rumors.
Um, it was Kawhi Leonard.
It was Anthony Davis.
It was Kevin Durant.
Year after year, regardless of how well Jalen Brown has played, and he has played at an all-star level for many years now.
The Celtics have been either shopping him or at the very least, listening to phone calls about him.
Now, you, look, to get something, you gotta give something, and if you’re gonna get an all NBA guy like Kawhi or an all NBA guy like AD or an all NBA guy like Kevin Durant.
You’ve got to give something real back .
So in some ways it’s a, a compliment to Jalen Brown that he would be at the centerpiece of all that.
But I, I don’t blame Jalen for feeling some kind of way about the Celtics.
All he accomplished, and year after year they were, you know, talking about trading him, and then they finally do, and they do it in a very public way over the last couple of months.
We’ve got some distance between.
You know, then, but you remember, like this was very, very public, trying to get him to Milwaukee.
Then it was trying to trade him anywhere.
Then you take a package of players and picks that really isn’t very good, commensurate with this, you know, second-team all NBA player who’s 29 years old.
So I don’t blame Jalen Brown for feeling some kind of way about the Celtics.
The Tatum stuff, I don’t fully grasp.
I mean, I saw Kendrick Perkins come out and say they were never really friends.
Um.
You’re far more on the inside of this than, well, you go ahead.
You go ahead, bro, this is what I’m mean like the thing of them saying they were never really friends is crazy because I know for sure they had the utmost respect for each other.
Like, when you, at least when I was around, when you walk in, when they look around, I’ve watched JT walk up to JB and shake his hand.
I watched JT the vice versa.
Like, do you understand what I’m saying?
Even when they were younger, I’m like, oh, they don’t even trip over females or who’s a man.
What, like there’s no real beef here.
Like there’s no real You, you grew up, like there’s no real foundational beef that I thought.
I mean no structural beef.
Like it’s just two alphas walking on a different prayer.
You know what I mean, the same Serengeti and it’s like, oh no, we’re, we’re cool.
I’ve watched them come up and acknowledge and show each other respect.
You know what I’m saying?
So, this whole thing like they were never really like friends.
I, I don’t.
I, I don’t really see, I mean, JB is a renaissance man.
Like if you don’t decide to learn salsa dancing that week, you’re not gonna see that man.
Like, like, do you understand what I’m saying?
Like when he leaves, you don’t know, he, he’ll leave the gym and pop up on stream and you’re like, oh, you’re a streamer now.
Like, like, like that’s, that’s his mojo, like he was a science kid, he went to Cal, like you say that like he’s just, he’s, he’s Iron Man.
Like we, we’re making up this and these are complex individuals.
JT’s never ever Had anything negative to say.
One thing he might have done off the wall was mind his business too much.
Like, do you understand what I’m saying?
He comes down, he said that to me, you know, in 2024 after they won a championship, I was talking to him in depth about the relationship with Brown.
Um, and he did say to me that he wished that he had been more publicly vocal about supporting Jalen during the trade talks over the years.
Like, maybe he supported behind the scenes, and people close to Tatum have insisted that behind the scenes he has told the Celtics over the years that this team was better with Jalen Brown on it, but publicly, um, he hasn’t been as vocal.
He did tell me he regretted that back in 2024.
Yeah, and that’s what I’m saying, but at the same time, the kid naturally minds his business.
Like if you hang out with him, he don’t get above a 4.
When you sit there, he don’t overthrow his weight.
What you love about him when he comes up to me, he treats me like I’m his, uh, it’s not his, it’s not his stes, you know what I mean?
And then when you bring the arrogance of it, he’s not worried about, he’s I can win any type of way, cool.
Like this is how it goes.
I don’t think he understood.
Oh wait, damn, if this occurs, it’s hurting my men.
Like dudes are so caught up in a hoop, hoop fest and all this stuff and , in a rat race.
I just think, uh, forgive me for like speaking like from a situation.
I’m just like, bro, I, I just, I think it got so ugly and it got just so drama-filled and you understand both sides, but it was never really that serious.
And we’re at a point now where people like they were never really friends like they never had a problem with each other.
Like , do you understand what I’m saying?
And when it comes down to competition, Is that a, that’s not a problem, we competing, like.
We’re at each other and, and I, I just don’t think I, I never saw it.
I, I don’t, I don’t understand it.
And if they weren’t really friends, kudos to them for doing all that shit because they won it in a high, high level.
Like you made the point, they are very different personalities.
Um, Jason Tatum, did Jalen Brown start there?
Like, is just as likely to wind up on a stream or in Atlanta marching for George Floyd or You know, starting the Boston Exchange that’s gonna bring like $5 billion to impoverished communities there, working on literacy projects like this guy, look, Jalen Brown, he’s the real deal when it comes to stuff.
He puts his time and his money where his mouth is.
Like there’s, there’s a broader conversation to be had.
Like if we have ever had, I mean we have, of course, but like more there’s no more impactful player in this league, I think.
In terms of outside of the court influence and the positive they’re bringing to the community than Jalen Brown, I, I’m being real about that .
Like I, I, the things he does are real, real substantive things, whereas Jayson Tatum, and this is not a knock on him at all, he’s kind of your traditional twenty-something who has the added layer of raising a young son along the way.
Like he’s, they’re, they’re just, they’re just very different.
So like they were never gonna be like.
You know, like Pierce and Ray Allen, like, we’re kind of peas in a pod, I thought, like they were kind of the two guys that would hang out together all the time.
Like that wasn’t Jalen and JT but that doesn’t mean they weren’t friends.
They weren’t off the court friends, but it doesn’t mean that they weren’t friendly as teammates.
Uh, exactly.
And then you look at Steph and Clay.
Did you ever see Stephan Clay in a banana boat?
Like, did you ever, like the, like, and not to bring kids into it, but baby Steph, Cannon saw Clay and was like, hey, Klay Thompson.
It wasn’t like, hey, Uncle Clay or anything.
It’s like, no, it occurred when you sit still, Clay had a chance to leave.
They didn’t say like, how did he leave Steph with the friendship going to it or was there a beef?
It’s just like he’s out, that’s it, so.
Well, this, that brings me to this point.
Let me, let me get into this point on this, um.
Where I, where I think, and this is just my kind of informed opinion, educated guess, I guess we’ll call it , um, You know, the, the clip that went viral was Tatum going like, I didn’t know this was kind of gonna happen.
Oh my God, they trip to Philadelphia, basically saying I knew nothing, and I think that’s where Jalen Brown, that’s got some, got some issue because, look, and, and I asked Brad Stevens this after the trade, you know, what involvement did Jason Tatum have, and he said nothing, um.
You know, that could be true by definition, but in a broader sense, like, you always know what your superstar franchise player wants, and you always cater to a degree to their needs.
So the idea that Either like that the idea that Tatum , I don’t think Tatum went to the Celtics to trade this guy, but I think Jalen Brown probably believes that Tatum could have stood in front of it, that Tatum could have stopped it.
Um, do you think there’s, that’s fair that like, not that it’s fair that he should have, but I think that Jalen’s thing is like, hey man, like you’re the face of the franchise here.
You don’t want this deal to go down.
It doesn’t go down, so stop putting stuff out there that makes it seem like you were blindsided by this trade.
Yeah, and I, and of course I think that’s, he’s not wrong for saying that.
Just the, the backside of it makes Tatum such a, a, a defendant in that sense.
It’s almost like, whoa, whoa, whoa, now it almost seems like he’s an aggressor.
It’s, it’s a simple thing just being like, hey, I, I heard.
You once again for the 100th time your name was gonna be in trade talks.
You never ever go anywhere.
So what, what was I supposed to know?
And I do believe when he’s like, y’all sent them up the street or even when you look at the, the pics like y’all like, and shout out to Paul George.
Paul George is balling, but it’s like we ain’t really get shit for him like at all like.
I’m sure Tatum was like, man, we heard about Giannis and then what comes back, shout out to Paul George.
Paul George is balling.
Like you’re like, bro, we, shit, we could have kept him.
Like, like, like I think he was really in genuine shock and like that ain’t no.
That ain’t shit.
Like, what?
Like, like, we, we back at square one like everybody else thought, but I go further into what Brad Stevens is saying, and you and I have been around and just realistically, NBA teams are expensive as hell.
Two people are gonna take up 70% of the salary cap.
The NBA is too loaded to try to ask Jason and JB to carry that with developing individuals.
It’s, you know what I mean?
And there’s no guarantee they’ll make it to a certain level and win a championship.
So when it comes down to it, signing him to that 2-year, $140 million extension was something you had to take heed of and remove yourself and protect yourself from that.
That’s it.
Like, 10 years or something was, was, was everything .
But it’s no different than when um You know, when they traded Kendrick Perkins or uh JV and Kendrick Perkins, but, but when, but when Danny Ainge made those tough trades, it’s like, yo, you got to foresee the future and when it’s kind of over and when it’s ran its ran its mark, and sometimes it’s 2 or 3 years ahead of time, you start prepping now, so.
I, I agree with that.
I do think that they are a worse team now than they were 6 months ago.
And I think even though the record’s pretty good to start the season, or it’s fine to start the season.
You can see where they’re worse.
Like shot creation isn’t there.
Like there’s a big burden on Jayson Tatum to create shots in the second half, specifically in the fourth quarter.
To my eyes, ET, it’s Tatum.
It’s Peyton Pritchard.
Those are the two guys that can shot create.
Paul George, good player, can get hot.
He’s a jump shooter.
Same thing with Derrick White, who, who’s still kind of struggling with that shot.
Um, all the other guys they’ve got Hugo, Shireman.
You know, Robinson’s a rebounder.
Same thing with Kada.
Like they, they missed Jalen Brown’s shot creation, and they’re going to miss Jalen Brown’s shot creation in the playoffs.
So they, they went from a team that I think would have entered the season as a true championship contender to being one that to me.
It is basically a second-round type of team right now.
And maybe that’ll change at the trade deadline .
They got these picks along with Paul George.
Maybe you can do some stuff, but right now they’re, they went from championship contender to non-championship contender to me, anyway, and, and that’s the, the consequence of this deal.
No, I’m, I’m, I’m right there with you.
I guess, uh, you know, I’ve always had like a wariness of what was going on in the West, so I, I kind of do that stature amongst, uh, You know, the Spurs, OKC before all those injuries occurred, even you look at the Houston Rockets, it’s like, man, can you compete with that?
But you’re absolutely right, man, it’s definitely a different team.
Um, you’re asking a lot on other guys such as Peyton Pritchard.
You need him to really score 20 to 25 a night.
Um, Paul George, he’s played well, but he’s just a shell of himself.
And then Derrick White, I think it It was just a lot to ask your, your, your dominant 4th in charge to become the 2nd in charge, and, and now we’re out here trying to, uh, manufacture buckets in that sense, and, and, and hopefully his defense overthrows the lack of shooting and offensive reduction that is out there, you know.
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