Jason Kidd ruffled quite a few feathers with his comments about Jaylen Brown during the NBA Finals, though in hindsight he was right.
After the Mavs dropped Game 1 against the Celtics, Kidd proclaimed that Brown was the franchises’ “best player”.
This caused quite a stir, particularly among Celtics player who even called the Dallas head coach out for it and accused him of trying to drive a wedge between Brown and Jayson Tatum.
This week, Kidd was asked about his comments once more and insisted there was no malice behind them.
“He was playing the best, I think, at the time,” Kidd told NBC Sports Boston. “Some took it as, I was trying to start something. But he had just won the Eastern Conference MVP, and then he actually ended up winning the MVP in the Finals. So I don’t know if I was wrong. But as we know, media can sometimes take it as, I was trying to start something between Jayson and Jaylen. It wasn’t that. I was just making a comment that Jaylen is playing at a high level. [Jrue] Holiday agreed. It wasn’t that I was starting anything.
“But Jaylen was. Jaylen was playing his best basketball at the right time and I made that comment. Some took it as I was trying to start something, but I wasn’t.”
Much to many people’s surprise, Brown wasn’t included in the Team USA lineup for the Paris Games.
Tatum was in the squad, but did not play in two of the six games.
There was a lot of pressure on Tatum to perform last season, after bombing out in the Finals multiple times.
But he seems on top of the world now.
“It’s been a crazy summer,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Via Noah Dalzell) Wednesday. “Fortunate enough to win my second Olympic gold medal on the national team. That was a hell of an experience. Finally won an NBA championship, something I’ve been working on for a very, very long time. Got extremely close a few times, but finally got over the hump. That was special, feel like I’ve gotten the weight of the world off my shoulders.”