{"id":260709,"date":"2026-08-07T01:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T01:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260709\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T01:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T01:10:07","slug":"as-jaylen-brown-embraces-his-future-in-philadelphia-hes-still-closing-the-book-on-his-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260709\/","title":{"rendered":"As Jaylen Brown Embraces His Future in Philadelphia, He’s Still Closing the Book on His Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Jaylen Brown likes to say that the start of something new must mean the end of something else. But as much as he wants to embrace his new chapter in Philadelphia, there are still faint traces of sadness.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that’ll fade as he starts life in a new city, where the community isn’t yet used to the philanthropic efforts that Boston grew accustomed to during Brown’s time there. Perhaps that sadness will convert into euphoria or even adrenaline as Brown is wrapped up in the warm embrace of a fanbase that is starving for the success that Boston had come to expect.<\/p>\n

“I’m focused on what’s in front of me,” Brown told media at his introductory press conference on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

“To be honest, I’m moving on.”<\/p>\n

What was in front of him was a packed gymnasium at the Francis J. Myers Recreation Center at 58th Street and Kingsessing Avenue in Philadelphia. What was in front of him was a crowd greeting Brown as he entered the gymnasium in search of high fives from innumerable children in shirts with his name on them.<\/p>\n

What was behind him?<\/p>\n

The memory of throwing his phone across the room when he first learned he’d been traded to a long-time rival.<\/p>\n

The perceived disrespect that chewed at Brown as his time in Boston came to an end.<\/p>\n

Brown said the word ‘respect’ 10 times in his introductory press conference. It is clearly a tenet central to his being.<\/p>\n

And even if the organization that drafted and raised Brown violated that principle in his final weeks as a Boston Celtic, you can still see glimpses of the pain in his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I feel like I\u2019ve dealt with that for a while. Internally, externally. I just choose to not focus on\u2026I choose to focus on what I focus on,” Brown said of the difficulty of the last six weeks.<\/p>\n

“Obviously it got to a threshold this offseason that was a little bit higher than it\u2019s been in the past where I think people attacked my character. Someone even went as far as to say I had a disease<\/a>. So it\u2019s been a crazy transition, to be honest. But none of it is completely surprising.”<\/p>\n

Brown carries himself with the maturity necessary to understand that being involved in trade rumors is part of the business of basketball. He’s been around long enough to deal with pundits dissecting the merits and demerits of his game. But this summer brought criticisms of his personality. Of his character.<\/p>\n

But Boston was still a welcoming home to a kid from Marietta, Georgia for the first 10 years of his professional life.<\/p>\n

It’s all still raw.<\/p>\n

“To answer your question, it\u2019s been a lot of emotions. It\u2019s been a process. To be honest, I\u2019m still processing to some degree\u2014one, the excitement of coming to a new city, a new place, new expectations, new energy; then also leaving somewhere that you\u2019ve been for a very, very long time,” Brown explained.<\/p>\n

“Like, I\u2019ve been in Boston for 10 years. I\u2019m 29 years old. So I was there a third of my life. I met some people, some life-long friends who I\u2019ll still be connected to. But in anything that you\u2019re starting something new, it\u2019s an end of something else.”<\/p>\n

Sign up\u00a0for our free newsletter<\/a>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0X<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>\u00a0for the latest news.<\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Jaylen Brown likes to say that the start of something new must mean the end of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-260709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}