After nine seasons together, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown’s partnership with the Boston Celtics came to an end last week when the C’s traded Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers. The move didn’t necessarily come as a surprise to the general public after Brown’s name had been strongly featured in trade rumors for weeks prior but sending him to a divisional rival, and for a return widely viewed as extremely underwhelming, was a shock.
The ripple effects of the decision will be many and significant. But in the immediate, nobody in Boston will feel the weight of the move quite like Tatum. The Celtics are betting big that he’ll be back to his old self in his first full season post-Achilles tear; without that confidence they wouldn’t have moved his co-star for the purpose of “optionality” as Brad Stevens put it. He’ll shoulder more responsibility than ever next season and how he holds up will play a big part in how the Brown trade is perceived years down the road—not to mention Boston’s championship chances over the next few seasons.
More than that, though, Tatum lost his longest-tenured teammate. He’s never spent an NBA season without Brown on the same roster; Tatum was drafted in 2017 and Brown in 2016. For the last nine years they’ve made up one of the most dangerous duos in the league. Going to work this year will be something of a new experience for Tatum as a result.
On Tuesday night, he reflected on that reality as well as the “abrupt” ending of Brown’s time with the Celtics.
“To be honest, weird. It’s weird,” Tatum said when asked how he’s feeling about the conclusion of his career-long partnership with Brown. “You play on a team with a guy for nine years who, I was fortunate enough to go to the Finals with him twice, and win a championship, and push each other to be the players that we are today. The NBA is an incredible business. It’s an incredible job. But there are some downsides to the business that we’re in 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. Then it’s just like, one day you find out that they’re no longer on your team anymore. And, we’re all humans. We feel those emotions. 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.
“But it just makes you appreciate the moments and time that we had. Obviously it came to an abrupt ending, but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t super successful. Some great years that he gave to the city and to the organization.”
Tatum has seen several longtime teammates exit the organization over the last few years, from Marcus Smart to Robert Williams to Al Horford (twice). Brown outlasted them all—until he didn’t. Such is the nature of the NBA.
But Tatum is right. Nothing about Brown’s exit washes away how successful their time together was.
Key Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown stats as teammates
In the nine years they played together, Tatum and Brown reached every level of NBA success that a duo could ask for.
Here are some of their key accomplishments as a duo:
- One NBA title
- Two NBA Finals appearances
- Two Eastern Conference titles
- 74 playoff wins
- 16 playoff series wins
It’s a dominant run and stamps their place as one of the most successful duos in modern NBA history. They led the Celtics to four 50-win seasons and two 60-win seasons. When both were fully healthy Boston never bowed out of the postseason in the first round. They were far from perfect—but they always showed up.
It’s the end of a ridiculously successful era in Boston, and one that shouldn’t be forgotten anytime soon.
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