Jayson Tatum finally shared his thoughts on the Boston Celtics’ controversial Jaylen Brown trade. ESPN caught up with Tatum at the ESPYS last night, and Tatum opened up about how strange it’s been to see his longtime teammate suddenly join the rival Philadelphia 76ers.<\/p>\n
The Celtics dealt Brown, 29, for 36-year-old Paul George plus two first-round picks and two second-round picks. Fans and media alike have ripped Boston for the move, as Brown is coming off a season in which he finished sixth in MVP voting and just won Finals MVP for Boston in 2024.<\/p>\n
“If I’m being transparent, it’s weird,” Tatum said. “I’ve been on the Celtics for nine years and he’s been my teammate every single one of those. You understand throughout the course of a career that the NBA is a business. People change teams, change coaches and front office, but it doesn’t make it any easier. There’s still a human element of it that you feel those emotions, the city feels those emotions. But there’s also a side of we have to welcome our new teammates with open arms, and we still have to attack the new season. So there’s a balance, but it’s weird.”<\/p>\n
Tatum made an improbable return from an Achilles tear in 2025-26, but he never looked quite right as his numbers dipped across the board. It was a bitter end to the season as well, with the 28-year-old unable to finish the Celtics’ first-round playoff series against Philadelphia due to injury.<\/p>\n
ESPYS results<\/p>\n
It was a tough ceremony for Boston fans as the New York Knicks won Best Team, while OG Anunoby won Best Play and Jalen Brunson collected three awards, including Best Athlete in men’s sports.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Jayson Tatum breaks silence on Jaylen Brown trade: ‘It was weird’<\/p>\n
Reporting by Wajih AlBaroudi, For The Win \/ For The Win<\/p>\n
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jayson Tatum finally shared his thoughts on the Boston Celtics’ controversial Jaylen Brown trade. ESPN caught up with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-805974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}