The Boston Celtics’ superstar Jayson Tatum recently sat down with TODAY’s Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle for a promotional interview for his newest children’s book, where he also spoke about Jaylen Brown’s trade to the 76ers.
After speaking about the book, parenting, and his relationship with his mother, Tatum was asked about the viral report from ESPN’s senior NBA insider, Shams Charania, last night, which claimed that his personal relationship with Jaylen Brown over the past year had been ‘nonexistent’.
“For one, I have nothing but love and respect for [Jaylen Brown]. It’s tough when, you know, you are a professional athlete, and everything you do is publicized and nitpicked. And it’s been like that, you know, we played together for nine years,” said Tatum.
“There was a period of our career when we hadn’t won a championship yet. But in retrospect, we were only 21 and 23 years old. So the expectations were high, and so they had to figure out a reason why we hadn’t won yet.”
“They tried to pit us against each other, saying one guy should not be here and whatnot. The truth is, we had nine amazing years together. We went to the Finals twice and won a championship. So I will forever be grateful for those memories and the time that we spent together,” he concluded.
The former Celtics player, Jeff Teague, seems to feel that Charania’s report is blowing things out of proportion between Brown and Tatum, and that most players around the league don’t share a personal relationship with their teammates, as the locker room atmosphere is, in many cases, strictly professional.
“Nobody is cool with people like that on their team, bro. I’m trying to tell y’all the truth, don’t nobody hang with nobody like for real for real. I got a couple of people that hang, but most people be work homeboys,” said Jeff Teague on the Club 520 podcast.
“I think about all the teammates I was cool with when I was on their team, man. We’ve had some of them like, ‘Man, you going to do the pop?’ Like, ‘Nah, I can’t f–k with you.’ I’m like, ‘God damn n—-, I used to… the f–k?’ You know what I mean? It just ain’t my homeboy for real,” Teague explained.
The Celtics’ president has previously clarified that Jayson Tatum did not play a role in the trade of Jaylen Brown, but the report from Shams Charania also pointed out the stark difference in the front office’s approach towards trade offers for both players.
Tatum, who sat out most of last season recovering from his Achilles injury, was considered untouchable in negotiations, while Brown, a former Finals MVP and 2025-26 MVP candidate, was shipped off at arguably the peak of his career.
So while Tatum claims that all is love and respect between the duo, the front office’s reasoning behind the trade raises a lot of eyebrows. Since it theoretically makes no sense to take on an aging player for an MVP candidate for ‘increased optionality’.
But it seems that Brown’s relationship with Tatum was not the factual reason behind the trade. It remains to be seen if Brown has anything to say about Tatum and the Celtics’ front office now.
