By now, you’ve likely heard all about the non-beef that’s been going on with Jaylen Brown and the Celtics in recent weeks. Most recently, Brian Scalabrine went viral for claiming that Brown came to the team with demands that ultimately led to him being traded, suggesting they essentially amounted to a trade request.
Scal didn’t go into detail in terms of what, specifically, was requested by Brown, but he made it clear that the organization wasn’t going to meet them, so they felt that they had no choice but to trade JB.
Brown fired back, through his representatives in a statement to ESPN, claiming that the only request they ever made in Boston was for Brown and Jayson Tatum to be treated equally.
Tatum and Brown are straight-up NOT on the same level
And therein lies the problem that’s likely the root of this entire situation. Despite what JB thinks, he and Tatum simply are not, and never have been equals. Jaylen is an amazing player and a great teammate. He was absolutely beloved by the Celtics fanbase, and he wore his heart on his sleeve, going to war for this city for ten years. He'll rightfully be remembered and honored as a Celtics legend forever.
He always left it all on the court, and he developed into an All-NBA-caliber player and one of the best in the league. But he’s not Tatum.
Tatum is a fixture on the first-team All-NBA, a perennial MVP candidate, and the main reason why the Celtics have been in contention for championships since he was drafted. He’s a generational player, he’s the straw that stirs the drink, and he is the face of the franchise.
Perhaps Brown was elite for a number two option, but he was never the guy. It was always Tatum’s team; it should always have been, and it had to be going forward. The fact that Brown didn’t realize that was clearly part of the issue. Even as great as last season was and as great as Brown was, the team was never truly viewed as a contender without Tatum, and that was borne out in the playoffs.
Celtics had no choice but to build the whole boat around Tatum
Even off the Achilles injury, it was almost immediately clear that Tatum was still ‘the guy’, as the team performed much better when he was on the court alone than when Brown was, something that has virtually always been the case. The scoring numbers may look relatively close over the years, but the advanced numbers do not.
Tatum makes everyone around him better and impacts winning at a high level. Brown is a great complement, but he has simply never proven that he can do that. I get that in a perfect world, every player would be treated equally, but that’s just not how things work in the NBA. It was high time for the Celtics to start operating as Tatum’s team and making sure that everything they do accentuates his greatness and allows him to lift the team to reach its ceiling.
Based on these comments, it doesn’t seem like Brown was fully on board with that plan, and based on the way he has been acting since, it certainly doesn’t seem like he would have been happy going along with it. So, while he may think his ‘request’ was innocuous and fair enough, clearly it wasn’t. Clearly, the Celtics didn’t think it was. And clearly, the underlying message behind it was enough for the organization to decide that he had to go.
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