Grant Williams' latest Celtics take couldn't be more wrong

This has been a strange summer for Boston Celtics fans, to say the very least. The Jays are no more after nine years as partners on the parquet. Jaylen Brown is a Philadelphia 76er and will be playing alongside LeBron James.

In the month following his trade to one of Boston’s biggest, if not the biggest, there’s been plenty of speculation about Brown's relationship with Jayson Tatum. More or less, a monumental move like the one that sent JB to the Sixers doesn’t happen if Tatum desperately wanted him on the team.

It doesn’t necessarily mean he felt the opposite way, just that he was at least indifferent.

According to former Celtics forward Grant Williams, the two got along just fine during his four years in Boston, and “enjoyed being around one another” on the court.

“You can bring the best out of someone else beside you,” Williams said during an appearance on Sirius XM’s NBA Today. “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.”

Grant Williams may be very wrong about Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown

Williams doesn’t feel like there was any beef between the Jays. But, it’s also been three years since he was in Boston’s locker room. Things can change.

Personally, I’m not typically one to bang the drum when it comes to gossip. There are so many aspects of the NBA that people like me will never know or understand.

It also seems like these guys might’ve been sick of each other by the end of it.

Once Brown was traded for a shockingly mediocre return, pundits around the basketball world tried to make sense of the All-NBA forward’s value being so low. 

Many pointed to his consistent outspokenness about this past season being his favorite, despite winning an NBA Championship just two years ago. Tatum spent the majority of the year sidelined while he rehabbed the torn Achilles he sustained in May of 2025, while Brown was given the keys to Boston’s offense.

On the surface it seems clear that being the No. 1 made the year enjoyable, which it might’ve, but JB also consistently voiced his pride in a Celtics’ group that won 56 games after largely being counted out heading into the season.

The 29-year-old’s “smartest man in the room persona,” as Colin Cowherd put it, was another major talking point.

Brown responded to the criticism during one of his Twitch streams, saying "No offense to everybody in sports, but the bar is f---ing' low."

A few weeks after the trade, Tatum was hosting a basketball camp in St. Louis and spoke to his campers about leadership. His speech came off as if it was a shot at Brown.

“Being around somebody that feels like they know it all, I don’t wanna be around that person,” Tatum shared to the group. “I don’t wanna be the smartest person in the room, I want to learn from somebody else.”

Typically, this is the kind of thing that goes viral when it gets clipped out of context. The only caveat is that Tatum shared the clip himself on his Instagram story. He wanted this to be seen.

Well, Brown heard the noise. He fired up Twitch earlier this week and emphasized how excited he is to learn from LeBron in Philly.

Safe to say I will be heavily monitoring the distant back-and-forth shots between the two throughout the season. As for Grant Williams, he may not be lying, but his insight may no longer be relevant here.

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