Jaylen Brown has revealed a dramatic three-way phone call he had with Jayson Tatum and Brad Stevens when it looked like he would be traded for Kevin Durant last summer.
When Durant requested a trade from the Nets in July, the Celtics expressed interested and were reportedly offering a package that included Brown, Derrick White, and future draft picks.
“Once we all got together and kind of talked it through, we all left on the same page,” Brown said of the phone call in an interview with The Ringer. “But the actions that was taking place during that time, it just didn’t seem like that was the direction that the organization was going in. I don’t know. It was hard to tell, at least.
“… It’s hard coming into teams and organizations and being warm. They operate on different principles, I think. This is an organization. They look at it as a business, where they’ll tell you one thing, and then behind closed doors, they’ll say another, and they’ll trade you off,” he says. “Tell you, ‘We love you,’ and they’ll be having like, ‘We’re going to trade him next week.’ I think that’s just how business is run.”
Brown said it only complicated matters knowing Tatum and Durant were friends and often worked out together.
Fortunately for Brown, the trade never went down and he remained with the Celtics, who continue to contend for a championship. But some of his other recent comments suggest that being included in trade talks left a lasting impression on him.
“I don’t know,” Brown said in the same interview when asked if he wanted to stay in Boston long term. “As long as I’m needed. It’s not up to me,” he says. “We’ll see how they feel about me over time and I feel about them over time. Hopefully, whatever it is, it makes sense. But I will stay where I’m wanted. I will stay where I’m needed and treated correct.”
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