Boston Celtics dual forward Jayson Tatum opened up about the Jaylen Brown trade on July 7.
“To be honest, it’s weird,” Tatum said. “You play on a team with a guy for nine years, who I was fortunate enough to go to the [NBA] finals with twice, and win a championship, and push each other to be the players that we are today.”
Brown was drafted third overall by the Celtics out of Cal in the 2016 NFL Draft. Tatum was drafted in the same spot the next year after the Celtics traded the first overall pick to the Sixers, who used that pick on guard Markelle Fultz. Brown and Tatum played the same position in college, so the Celtics slid Brown to shooting guard and had Tatum play small forward in the starting lineup.
The pair formed a formidable duo and made the Celtics a perennial contender. They went to the playoffs in all nine of their seasons together. They appeared in the Eastern Conference Finals five times, including back-to-back-to-back appearances from 2021 to 2024. Of those five appearances, the Celtics advanced to the NBA Finals twice and won a championship in 2024.
“The NBA is an incredible business, an incredible job, but there are some downsides to the business that we’re in,” Tatum said. “And moments like this, where you just kind of feel like you’re going to be on the team with somebody—because that’s all you know—and then it’s just like one day, you find out that they’re no longer on your team anymore. And we’re all human, we feel those emotions, and going into the facility and knowing that you have different teammates, and somebody that you’ve been to war with, essentially, is on a different team.”
The panelist pointed out that Brown is not simply going to a different team: the Celtics and Sixers have been bitter rivals for decades, and that rivalry has not softened over the past nine seasons. The two teams met in the playoffs four times, winning three of those series handily. Last season, the Sixers finally got the better of the Celtics, overcoming a 3–1 deficit to advance to the conference semifinals.
Tatum refused to name the Sixers, but he stressed how hard it was to lose a valued teammate.
“It just makes you appreciate the moments and time that we had,” he said. “Obviously, it came to an abrupt ending, but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t super successful. [Those were] some great years, obviously, that he gave to the city and to the organization. But the tough part is, you miss teammates, and you have new teammates, and you want to welcome those guys and accept them and move forward, and so there is a lot of balance.”
Brown reacted to the trade on Tuesday as well.
“I want to say there’s nothing to be sad about,” he said at a charity event for his 7uice Foundation.
“There’s a lot of opportunities that I will still be able to fulfill here. And also, I hope they can follow me on my journey. I get that things didn’t end in a [fashion] that made sense to me. I’m still trying to make sense of it. I’m still processing. I’m just grateful to have an opportunity, and I’m grateful for the families to allow me to come into their community and get involved and try to find solutions.”
He does seem to be excited to be landing in Philly. A clip from one of his livestreams went viral in which he referenced “The Process,” the Sixers’ multi-year rebuild around center Joel Embiid, which made them a perennial playoff team and led to their frequent clashes with the Celtics.
“The Process is back,” he said, adding “We’ve been shutting The Process down for the last, I don’t know how many years, The Process [has] been over, but now the Process is back.”
