“I Don’t Wanna Be The Smartest Person In The Room," - Jayson Tatum Took Some Very Clear Shots At Jaylen Brown While Giving A Speech About Leadership At His Camp

Maddie Meyer. Getty Images.

After nearly a decade together, in which we saw Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown win both more regular season and playoff games than any other duo in the entire NBA and a championship, it's going to take some time for things to really settle in that not only are they broken up, they've been pitted against one another given Jaylen Brown now plays for the Sixers. The visual of that is going to be weird as fuck when their first matchup happens, and you could say since the trade we've seen Jaylen Brown take his fair share of shots at both the Celtics and in some ways, Jayson Tatum as well

The whole thing just makes me sad as someone who to this day still very much believes in the Tatum/Brown duo and someone who is sad Jaylen Brown won't retire a Celtic. But for most of the offseason, things in this department were a bit one-sided. Whenever Tatum had been asked about the trade and the split, every answer he gave was a masterclass in PR. It's why he's the best to ever do it when it comes to speaking with the media. He's the PR training final boss.

That is, until today.

Knowing how PR conscious and careful with his words Tatum is, it's hard to not to think this speech about leadership to his camp had some hidden digs in there

Forget for a second that everything Tatum said in that clip about being a leader is true. Another 10/10 response from someone who knows what it takes to lead a team to the top of the mountain. But you see this wasn't just a normal PR answer from Tatum, even if it may appear that way on the surface. Again, he will always choose his words wisely, so when you hear a certain phrase in that clip, it's hard not to make the connection

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The same way we had to be honest about Jaylen Brown taking his shots at Tatum and the Celtics following the trade, let's also be honest here. That is 100000000% a shot at Jaylen. It just is. You will not convince me otherwise, so don't even try to. You could make the case that the entire speech was a shot at how Tatum may have felt Jaylen approached last season. Is it a coincidence that he makes that comment, following what Cowherd said, and the result ended up being Jaylen got traded and was liking videos about how Tatum didn't go to bat for him and save him? I'm supposed to believe that's a coincidence?

Giphy Images.

And again, as someone who thoroughly enjoyed their partnership for the last 9 years, this is all pretty depressing to witness. This was the best duo in the NBA, and now they are on rival teams taking shots at one another. Boy, do things change quickly! Instead of being in a race for Ring #2 together, it's now a race to see who can get Ring #2 before the other one. That'll be a little weird for my brain to get used to if we're being honest.

Sixers/Celtics already had enough juice given everything that's taken place since April, but now that we have Tatum openly throwing shots in public? Something he never does? I would say things have gone up a few levels. How could they not? 

And with this being 2026, we should probably expect a response from Jaylen on his stream I would think, so this most likely is going to get much, much uglier in the next few weeks. These teams do play in the preseason, and if the regulars play in that one, it may as well be Game 7 of the NBA Finals. 

It's crazy to think that when the Celtics were rolling in March and then got Tatum back, we had hopes of another banner. Now, just 4 months later, here we are. God dammit. 

At least we'll always have these moments, so there's that