In a tail as old as time, Jaylen Brown shunned away Jayson Tatum’s advance for a handshake and a hug just before the ball was tipped during last nights Sixers-Celtic matchup. What did Brown do exactly? Awkwardly pretend Tatum wasn’t there and almost Spoelstra-James style stiff shoulder him away. Tatum took the annoyance in stride and went over for another customary, now almost obligatory custom handshake with Lebron James.
So what is the point of all of this? Both players have reason to be salty. Jayson Tatum gave a seemingly PR approved, cringe-worthy press conference where he said he his friend told him to put a towel over his head to not show the shock on his face when he was informed Jaylen Brown was traded. In that moment, I am sure every reporter was thinking, “whoa cool candid moment from Tatum, real dude” to “this feels canned…” pretty fast. Jaylen Brown told us so much with his ‘cap’ emoji comment under the post.
Jaylen is not innocent in all of this either, almost immediately after his team was ousted from last season playoffs, Brown went on his Twitch stream and declared last season his “favourite season by far”. How the FUCK is Tatum not supposed to take that as both disrespectful and insensitive? I thought Jaylen Brown was supposed to be this omnipotent soon-to-be President of the Players Association with a near genius IQ? He either knew exactly what he was doing or we should take his word at face value when he later walked back the comment saying he meant the team had no expectations and ended up winning 56 games which made it his favourite season, you know, over the season where the won the actual NBA Championship! There is absolutely truth to having an MVP-caliber season and dragging your team to 56 wins when the pre-season over/under was 39.5. But like Gus from The Wire said when he was putting that weasel Scott Templeton on blast, “it always starts with something true!”.
Brad Stevens said it in not so many words during his press conference, this team likely came to its eventual demise. Tatum is a better player than Brown, not too many people would dispute that but they are both top-15 players and worthy of max contracts meaning Boston would have to cough up 70% of their salary cap for 2 players about to enter their 30’s. On top of that, Geroge Costanza without his glasses could still see the vibes were off and going in the wrong direction and Twitch-gate removed any doubt in anyone’s minds.
Then there was Tatum’s first game back where he was introduced last, therefore getting the ‘anchor’ introduction and I am sure in Browns eyes, a not so subtle reminder than Tatum is #1.
Honestly though, can you imagine tearing you Achilles (which I personally have) and having your teammate say this was the best season he’s ever had? On what planet should I not be taking that as a clear slight as me as a player or a person?
Jaylen Brown then gets traded later that offseason for what everyone in the moment thought was a pretty weak trade further devaluing Browns name (in his mind). NBA players are fragile people, no matter how impressive they think they are (Draymond) so it is no surprise that Brown took this trade and Tatum’s press conference speech so negatively. After all, he did nothing wrong right? Like an NBA player being called for a foul, there’s NO WAY a player actually did something wrong. As he put it, no beef here, just some lamb chops & gravy, whatever the fuck that means…
As mentioned above, this is a tail as old as time. Shaq & Kobe once had a very public breakup and the cold shoulder dab heard around the world. God I miss these days, I mean look at how these two approached each other, Kobe’s icy face and Shaq walking to the middle of the court like he still owns the building, one tap to the chest eerily similar to what Tatum offered Brown. As we know, Kobe could not stand Shaq’s perceived lack of focus and preparation when it came to the NBA season and Shaq hated how selfish Kobe was and it all culminated in the Lakers 5-game gentlemen sweep in the 2004 NBA Finals when Kobe did everything he could to shoot the Lakers out of the series wasting a still dominant Shaq in the process. It took over a decade for them to reconcile but at least these guys really hated each other. I respect that because Tatum & Brown ain’t no Kobe. Kobe hated everyone and wanted to win at all costs including friendship and being nice, he was a killer, whereas Tatum & Brown are still fighting for PR approval.
Then there’s the much more childish Steve Ballmer-Blake Griffin interaction that still makes me chuckle, where was Blake going? LA had just re-signed Blake to a massive 5yr/$175M deal and 6 months later traded him in a salary dump to Detroit. Blake was done but his annoyance is more with how the Clippers went about it. In their re-signing pitch, they ushered him through their arena and showed him with his jersey # retired and (seriously, this happened) a t-shirt of Blake next to historical pioneers like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama. Not a reason to hate someone, but pretty fucking weird by the Clippers no doubt.
As I approach my 40’s and I write this article, I do feel like the old man on the lawn but to me this is much ado about nothing and merely young men with hurt feelings that would rather push their own narratives than admit they had a hand in what happened. Some day we’ll get the ‘no one wants to see this’ face-to-face sit down where they shake hands, hug and say the media blew this out of proportion, so sure, let me start, we’re sorry guys, its our fault (insert cap emoji).
