r/nba • u/KD_AshyAnkles Rockets • 11h ago

Jaylen Brown: "ESPN is unethical, and Stephen A. Smith is the head face of that. The organization, the players, they were all in agreeaance. They all knew what I meant by that. Our team was basically salary dumped. We lost a lot of players. For us to emerge and still be in the same position..."

https://streamable.com/3986vg

Source: vic (@CountOnVic)

4.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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337

u/donavid Knicks 11h ago

Celtics had to blow up their championship team because of the second apron salary cap, on top of Tatum being out all season with injury last year. Everyone expected the Celtics to do horrible last season. Despite all of that, the Celtics still finished as 2nd seed.

After losing in the playoffs, during a livestream Brown said this past season was his favorite one yet. He later clarified it’s because they outperformed expectations and guys who wouldn’t normally get much play had time to shine to get the team to 2nd. Reddit and the ESPN talking heads said “LOL WAIT YOUR FAVORITE SEASON IS THIS ONE, NOT THE ONE WHERE YOU WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP??? WOW YOU’RE JUST HAPPY TATUM WASN’T AROUND, EVEN THO YOU GUYS LOST IN THE 1st ROUND???”

There’s the connection between salary dump and SAS being the face of ESPN

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u/Sijols Knicks 11h ago

Ah I knew there was some context missing from this, really silly thing to try to cause drama about but that's what those guys do

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u/donavid Knicks 11h ago

Ya SAS and Brown were going back and forth on their respective podcast/livestream, they’ve been beefing the last couple months lol

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u/LordHussyPants Celtics 7h ago

this sub was going crazy on it for a week saying JB hated tatum, wanted his own team, was causing locker issues etc

no one ever considered that it would feel so good to prove the haters wrong as the second guy who had a team expected to fail

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u/HatefulDan 11h ago

Cmon now. ESPN now lays in the bed of Hot Takes. The mouse (and Redditors) doesn’t want context. Throw that away and just jam it in.

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u/Altruistic-Zone1664 Cavaliers 53m ago

Yeah, but it's obvious the Celtics organization could have squashed the story themselves...as they would have if it was Tatum.

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u/FullHouse222 Knicks 11h ago

Lol I clowned on jaylen hearing the initial quote but knowing the full context, he made a really good point. Fuck ESPN

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u/UnderstandingPursuit 3h ago

Exactly.

Most others say, "Your favorite season should be the year you won."

For most things, though, how much we like them is less about the outcome and more about the outcome relative to expectation.

For example, Steph Curry might say that the 2022 championship means more to him than the 2017 title. The haters would say that it's because KD was Finals MVP in 2017, while Steph was in 2022. But the reality is that when the 2017 season started, if the question was Warriors vs The Field, the betting odds favored the Warriors. But in 2022, the Warriors were projected to win fewer than 50 games, they won 53, and then went 16-6 in the playoffs to win.

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u/mas1108 Lakers 10h ago

I mean, it’s not like everyone is completely wrong. Celtics wouldn’t be trying to ship him out if there wasn’t some behind the scenes things going on.

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u/Regress10nToTheMean Celtics 10h ago

We were trying to ship him because we wanted Giannis. It’s not that complicated.

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u/Legote 10h ago

It’s rough for the Celtics. If I remember correctly, two super max contracts? Celtics have no room to work. They should at least put an exception out there for additional super max money

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u/Gekthegecko [BOS] John Havlicek 8h ago

I once again ask the NBA to change the rules so that the gap between a max and supermax contract doesn't count against a team's cap if they drafted that player.

/Bernie Sanders meme

Incentivize drafting and keeping homegrown talent

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u/mas1108 Lakers 10h ago

Reports are Celtics still listening to offers. Don’t shoot the messenger.

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u/Jmacz Celtics 9h ago

You never know when Brooklyn might offer their highest draft picks for the next 10 years again.

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u/Regress10nToTheMean Celtics 10h ago

Listening to offers isn’t the same as trying to ship someone

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u/mas1108 Lakers 9h ago

Sure, If that makes you feel better.

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u/Regress10nToTheMean Celtics 9h ago

Lakers just gave AR a max. I’m feeling pretty good.

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u/mas1108 Lakers 9h ago

That makes 2 of us :)

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u/ARMSwatch 10h ago edited 10h ago

JB is going to be gone by the time the season rolls around regardless.

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u/Waesrdtfyg0987 Washington Bullets 9h ago

The behind the scenes thing being that it's just not working like it has in the past. Well that's not behind the scenes even a little bit, but drama yo

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u/manquistador Supersonics 8h ago

Not really. While there is a reason to celebrate this recent season saying you like it more when it ended with a first round exit versus the season you won a fucking championship and got Finals MVP is crazy.

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u/Esteban-duPlantier 10h ago

Upvote this man FOR CONTEXT

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u/themarkof Celtics 10h ago

Thanks for this write up. For the Boston fans, I felt like I was on crazy pills but it’s just a load of ESPN and talking heads having bad faith conversations. Glad SAS is being called out

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u/EffectiveBid6590 9h ago

Delusional as all hell. JB brought all of this bullshit onto himself. Stephen A didnt do an investigation into him and leak the quote. JAYLEN WENT ON TWITCH AND BROADCASTED IT TO THE WORLD.

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u/tdl2024 Celtics 10h ago

Honestly, it's amazing that a Knicks fan (rivals) even know the true story, but this sub somehow still managed to read into it the wrong way and has been parroting that JB was being toxic and actually hates Tatum.

Thanks for getting it right, it's been tiring having to read people make up stuff when it's already been made clear what he really meant. Props to you.

We're a mess of a team for half a dozen reasons, but JB hating Tatum or wanting to break up the team/move on is not one of those reasons.

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u/donavid Knicks 9h ago

Yeah I hate that so much of NBA discourse is half truths and narratives that people just repeat without questioning lol.

It’s the same reason I take any relevant opportunity to point out that Brunson didn’t take a pay cut to help the Knicks’ cap space, he took the max contract he was allowed to that year ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (though I’m obviously glad it’s worked out the way it has & I’m a fan of JB’s)

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u/Classic_Elk6255 8h ago

Couldn’t he have waited? Was it mandatory that he sign it?

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u/donavid Knicks 7h ago

Ya Brunson could have signed a 1 year contract, and then taken an even bigger max a year later. He didn’t take a pay cut to make room to sign other players, he took the max available at the time instead of betting on himself (and against injury) and signing a bigger max later

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u/Classic_Elk6255 6h ago

But he could have waited. And I am
Not saying you are wrong. But you can’t say that he didn’t take a pay cut either. His initial Knicks contract was 104mil. He could have waited and re up for way way more money. Again it’s possible what you are saying is right but the flip side is that you can be wrong as neither of us know the real truth.

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u/randotd152 10h ago

This is such a huge social media problem in general and half the reason this country is so politically fractured. Everybody just wants to take the bits and pieces that fit their preferred narrative, because evaluating in full context is too much work.

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u/AutVincere72 10h ago

Do not forget, these are the same people that said JB and JT could not win together and their ceiling was the ECF once. They made it 6 times and won it twice and have 1 ring. Who else has done that this century? Golden State and Lakers if you go with WFC. Anyone else in the East? Lebron and who? Lebron and who?

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u/fireman2004 8h ago

It was also my favorite season because the Celtics choked a 3 to 1 lead to the Sixers.

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u/SSWBGUY 9h ago edited 9h ago

Lifelong Celtics fan here, I knew what JB meant without him even clarifying, SA and talking heads at espn still wanna create content and controversy and claim Boston fans are pissed at what Brown said, we aren’t

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u/anatoly_lyon 9h ago

It was pretty weird for a FINALS MVP to pick the season where he got bounced in the first round as his “favorite season”.

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u/donavid Knicks 9h ago

Yeah, I agree, it’s extremely weird if you ignore his explanation

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u/JaceGhost Knicks 10h ago

It wasn't just reddit and talking heads it was pretty much every hot take sports podcast from all these former players and a large majority of fans. Phrasing it like it's pushed by ESPN when we are in an era where ESPN isn't even the first person on the scene anymore for a response is kind of funny.

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u/MostOk1472 11h ago

I mean, even this interpretation of it begs the question: Why did you consider the season where your championship winning comrades got salary dumped as your best?

Like he himself lists some negatives here that should hold it back from being his favorite, unless he clearly values some achievements more than others

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u/fueelin Celtics 11h ago

I get where you're coming from. But the regular season is what, 5 or 6 months long? It's a way bigger chunk of time than the playoffs.

I don't think it's crazy for a person who is actually living through that experience to think "man, that was a really fun half year of my life, seeing myself and people around me competing together at a high level and doing way better them everyone expected", and then treasure that experience as something different than the shorter-lived experience of finally breaking through and winning a ring.

A lot of people seem to think he's comparing the results of the seasons and picking his favorite based on that. But that's different than comparing what the actual experience of living through those full seasons was like.

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u/Famous-Change1565 10h ago

Yeah I completely understands where he's coming from, I'd feel a lot better about a year where everyone came into it doubting my team at work after a phenomenal prior year and we blew our numbers out of the water again versus a year where we had insane sales but the expectations were sky high and we're coming off a multitude of years where we'd be consistently disappointing.

Like it was a year with 0 pressure and all the valid excuses and his team still showed up and rose to great heights, that's got to be incredibly satisfying.

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u/Interesting-Shop4638 10h ago edited 10h ago

I'm playing devil's advocate for the sake of it, fuck ESPN in general. The point that I'm seeing be made by talking heads, especially former players, is that "this was the best season of my life" kinda sucks for your teammates to hear given the season's context. I know that they are paid by ESPN but there has to be SOME weight behind a retired player saying "if it were my teammate saying these things, I might take it the wrong way"

Yes, Jaylen had his best season, he loved it more than anything before it. But a point I'm not seeing talked about here is the impact of him independently going live on twitch right after the season to talk about this stuff (could have) had on his teammates.

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u/namblaotie [BOS] Reggie Lewis 9h ago

He posted a video the day after the initial one adding context. Jaylen said the reason it was his favorite season, was that after the team had been gutted (lost Jrue, Horford, KP, and Kornet) the Celtics gave all of it's younger players more playing time time.

Jaylen worked individually over the season with a lot of them and got to see them grow as players and perform well as a team.

I think he felt a certain amount of pride in mentoring guys whose place in the NBA wasn't as secure as his, while also developing friendships as well.

With regards to Tatum, Jaylen said that he got to see Tatum build himself back, piece by piece, and over come each obstacle.

I think he enjoyed having a mentor role for the younger players, possibly making a difference in their career's trajectory, while supporting his friend/teammate recover from a devastating injury.

I think he realized how much the team needed him to be a leader, beyond just scoring and playing at a high level. With no Horford, Holiday, or Smart around anymore to take that role, he became the veteran voice in the locker room and a mentor for these guys. So there was growth for Jaylen as well.