Jaylen Brown requested to hold his Philadelphia 76ers introductory news conference on Thursday at the Francis J. Myers Recreation Center in Southwest Philly as opposed to the franchise’s training facility across the Delaware River in Camden, New Jersey. Local children were invited to attend, and he stressed how he and his family are people who are rooted in the communities they occupy.
“That’s where we hang our hat,” he said.
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Yet as much as Brown emphasized his focus on his new home and his new squad, once a rival city and a rival team, he was peppered with questions about the place more than 300 miles away that he said a complicated goodbye to early this summer. Reporters, including a batch from Boston, inquired about the tumultuous end of his 10-season tenure with the Celtics, his relationship with longtime co-star Jayson Tatum and his latest feelings on the shocking trade that sent him down the East Coast to an organization he was taught to hate, essentially from the day he was drafted at 19 years old out of Cal.
Brown, 29, seemingly bit his tongue at times, wanting to, in his words, “move forward,” except it was impossible to totally ignore the drama that still surrounds him, a bit more than a month after he was dealt to the Sixers for a 36-year-old Paul George and four picks.
The existing tension was crystal clear when a reporter asked the five-time All-Star forward if this summer’s transaction will fuel him, similar to how he found motivation when he was left off Team USA’s roster for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Brown, of course, now will face the Celtics routinely as part of a Sixers team also competing in the Atlantic Division.
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He chuckled to himself before saying, “Say that one more time.”
“You’re going to face them a couple times,” the reporter said.
“Just one day at a time,” Brown replied. “That’s all I got.”
Brown ‘still processing’ it all, says he hasn’t really spoken to Jayson Tatum lately but has ‘nothing but respect’ for him
Brown remarked that when he first learned he had been traded, he threw his phone across the room. Two years removed from earning NBA Finals MVP honors while helping Boston win it all, he was on his way out.
Brown had been dangled as a trade chip during the Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes, which the Celtics lost to the Miami Heat. The trade Boston settled for raised eyebrows, given the dubious return it received.
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Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens, who coached Brown for five seasons before making the jump to the front office, told reporters that the move offered Boston “more optionality,” considering that more than two-thirds of the franchise’s salary cap resources were tied to Brown and Tatum. Eyeing continued depth, Boston hung onto Tatum and parted ways with Brown.
Tatum missed most of this past season as he recovered from the Achilles injury he suffered during the 2025 playoffs. In his absence, Brown shouldered the load and put up the most impressive numbers of his career, averaging a career-high 28.7 points. Expected to experience a drop-off of sorts, the Brown-led Celtics remained an Eastern Conference power, largely not skipping a beat prior to Tatum’s return.
After the season, during a controversial Twitch stream, Brown described the 2025-26 campaign as his “favorite year” of his basketball career, despite Tatum being sidelined for much of it and Boston blowing a 3-1 lead to Philadelphia in the opening round of the playoffs.
Brown was asked Thursday about his relationship with Tatum, a six-time All-Star forward he shared the court with for nine years.
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“We won a championship together,” Brown said. “So anybody that you win a championship, you would think that’s what a brotherhood or a lifelong legacy would entail.
“Obviously, there’s ups and downs in any type of relationship, for sure. But on my end, it’s nothing but respect. Besides when he plays the Sixers, I hope he does well. But other than that, everything for me is just based in respect.”
But when asked if he and Tatum have been able to talk since his departure, Brown replied, “not really.”
Last month, Tatum admitted that it’s “weird” that he and Brown aren’t teammates anymore.
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“It’s tough,” Tatum said back then during a Q&A, when promoting his new children’s book, per CelticsBlog. “But it just makes you appreciate the moments and time that we had,” Tatum said. “Obviously, it came to an abrupt ending, but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t super successful. Great years, obviously, that he gave to the city and to the organization.”
Jayson Tatum (left) and Jaylen Brown (right) spent nine seasons together with the Boston Celtics from 2017-26. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
(Mitchell Leff via Getty Images)
Brown’s affinity for the city of Boston remains evident, just as it shined through in the statement he released following news of the deal that shipped him off to Philadelphia.
“I look back at the city of Boston, and I’m grateful,” said Brown, who noted on Thursday that he was in Beantown for more than a third of his life.
“I’ve been able to develop as a man, as a human being there. I spent a lot of time in the community, a lot of time at university studying, learning, figuring out how to approach how I wanted to go about my philanthropy, figure out how I wanted to approach how to carry myself. A lot of my most important years, my most developmental years as a young man, I spent in Boston.”
He added: “I didn’t do a four-year degree because I left early. … I got my degree in Boston in a sense. … The relationships are still there. The connection is still there. I’m looking forward to continuing my foundation work as well as expanding it to here to Philadelphia.”
He won’t hesitate to effuse about Boston, the city, but Boston the organization appears to evoke a different, more potent cocktail of emotions.
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Brown conceded that “the whole process” of how he was traded bothered him. Plus, he expressed that he was frustrated by what was said about him during that time. Balancing that denigrating chatter, as well as what he was navigating internally within the Celtics organization, weighed on him.
At the same time, he recognizes that job and family relocation is part of life, and that’s something he’s accepted.
“To be honest, I’m moving on,” Brown said. “Maybe one day we share the details of how everything transpired and all the moving parts that took place in this.
“Obviously it’s a lot of speculation. I feel no need to chime in on it because I’m focused on what’s in front of me.”
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Perhaps more anything, Brown acknowledged that he’s “still processing” everything that went down, “to some degree,” he clarified.
‘Winning is the agenda’: Brown not concerned about stacked Sixers roster that includes LeBron James
Brown was the first domino to fall during a surprisingly seismic Sixers offseason that’s additionally featured the efficient acquisition of a 41-year-old LeBron James.
Together, those two have made Philadelphia a must-watch team in 2026-27. They’ll try to get the Sixers over the championship hump. The franchise hasn’t made it to the Eastern Conference finals since 2000-01, and its last championship came in 1983.
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James has four NBA titles under his belt to go along with four league MVP awards. He’s one of four players in the Sixers’ projected starting five who averaged north of 20 points last season.
Brown isn’t worried about the scoring distribution, though.
“Winning is the agenda,” he said.
He also explained: “My focus going into every practice, every meeting, every shootaround, every film session is like, ‘How do we win, night in and night out?’ So sometimes that may change, sometimes it may look different, but whatever it takes. At this point in my career, nothing else really moves me. I don’t care about the outside success. I never did.
“I don’t care about the MVP awards or the Finals MVP. None of that stuff really moves me. It’s nice. The only thing that’s going to move me is doing something collectively: A championship. So that’s what I’m looking forward to, trying to start that journey and building towards. But all the other stuff that comes along with it, it’s just a distraction to me. Whatever it takes on a night-to-night basis is whatever it takes.”
Brown doesn’t subscribe to the notion that this iteration of the Sixers has “to be anybody’s team.”
“It just needs to be based in respect and work,” he said.
Brown discussed how he’s eager to be a sponge around James, picking up tips and tricks from the 24th-year veteran about everything he’s endured. He mentioned that he’s been a fan of second-year guard VJ Edgecombe, who Brown said “killed us” in the first-round series the Sixers came back to win against the Celtics.
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Edgecombe and another Philadelphia backcourt standout, Tyrese Maxey, were the first to reach out to Brown once he was traded, he recalled. Center Joel Embiid, a one-time league MVP, contacted him early on, too.
“We talk damn near every day, almost,” Brown said, touting the growing chemistry between him and his teammates.
“We got group chats, multiple now. And we all trying to figure this thing out. LeBron, he’s active in the group chat. So we just trying to all get on the same page. I think everybody knows how incredible the opportunity that we have, but we also got to put in the work.”
The Sixers can’t skip steps, and their roster doesn’t guarantee a championship, or even consistent winning. Brown is well aware.
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He applauded the Sixers for their offseason efforts, albeit with a important disclaimer.
“Obviously on paper, we’re excellent,” he said. “We have a lot of talent compared to other teams in the league.
“But I’ve been around a long time, long enough to know that just what you have on paper don’t really mean nothing. It can if you put the work in, but it also, if you allow distractions, if you allow the media to get into your locker room, if you allow certain things and the personalities don’t work, it could be a detriment.”
He concluded: “So I’m aware that it could go either way. It just takes the amount of work and the transparency and the leadership can really guide this thing or not. So for me, I’m just focused on that — how can I lead with my heart, lead with my work, my mentality.”
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