If you’re waiting for Jayson Tatum to respond to Jaylen Brown with a cryptic emoji or social media post, you may be waiting for a very long time.
Fresh off a dominant performance — 36 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists — in a win over the Knicks, Tatum was asked about Brown posting a cap emoji as a comment under a video of Tatum explaining his reaction to learning that Brown had been traded. (The cap emoji from Brown suggested that he believed Tatum was lying.)
While Tatum clearly wasn’t perfectly comfortable talking about the matter, he spent more than 2 minutes explaining his thoughts on his relationship with Brown.
“I understand, being the entertainment business. Me personally, I’m not much of an off-the-court entertainer type of guy. For me to just like, I don’t have any animosity or beef or ill will towards him,” Tatum said. “I think the frustrating part is since he’s not on the Celtics anymore, the narrative or the conversations haven’t been enough about what we accomplished, all of the games we won, winning a championship, how we’ve grown together, right? And it’s turned into this drama type of thing, and it’s like, I’m not — I got two kids, you know what I’m saying?”
Tatum reiterated that he believes his relationship with Brown should be remembered for the successes along the way, not the ending.
“We should be celebrated. You know how many people played in this league and never went to the Finals? We went twice and won a championship, so it should be more about that,” he said. “Like, this ain’t no [expletive] Shaq and Kobe. There’s no beef. It’s not about that. It should be more, you know, praise. And I understand that don’t necessary sell, and drama gets clicks and views, but I’m not really into — that’s not like my thing.”
Tatum said he “reached out to him the day that he got traded” by phone and by text but understands that Brown may not have been eager to talk.
“I understand, people process things differently. So for me, at this point in our lives, we’re too old to be having our relationship discussed X, Y, and Z on the internet,” Tatum said. “If there’s a conversation to be had, we can definitely have that conversation. I welcome that. I’ve always wanted the best for him and wished the best for him. I’ve always publicly said those things.”
As for people using the online drama to hype up future matchups between Tatum and Brown when the Celtics and 76ers meet this season, Tatum said he’s not viewing those games through such a lens.
“I’ve seen all these things about like, ‘Get your popcorn ready when they play,'” Tatum said. “Like, it’s not a [expletive] boxing match. Like, I play basketball. I don’t — again, there’s no animosity, there’s no beef.”
Though Tatum is still in his 20s and is very much in the social media generation, he stated the only way to smooth things out with Brown will be for the two to talk to each other.
“I just hate the way that the conversation, the narrative around it, when there’s not enough communication. And I think a conversation would solve or put out a lot of fires,” Tatum said. “And again, people process, handle things at their own time. And whenever that happens, it’ll happen.”
Tatum said that realities can often get distorted by the media and other outside voices, and that a conversation is likely the most logical route to solve any issues.
“As adults, just a conversation — I’m not saying it’s going to be a bad one or anything like that,” Tatum said. “It’s just, communication or conversations usually you just get to — right, wrong, you will understand the other side. And I think that’s just not done enough, especially in our business.”
