Brian Scalabrine Pours Gasoline Onto the Jaylen Brown-Jayson Tatum Feud. Now Everyone Has a Take.

The ongoing Jaylen Brown-Jayson Tatum beef is a perfect topic for today’s NBA landscape.

(Sorry, not beef. Beef is the wrong word. “A little lamb chops and some gravy.” That’s better.)

Two star former teammates who won a championship for one of the NBA’s premier franchises together are now in a back-and-forth feud. It’s happened more than a few times in NBA history, most notably the divorce between Lakers greats Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal in 2004.

Tatum actually brought up Bryant and O’Neal when he addressed the situation over the weekend, saying, “this ain’t no Shaq and Kobe.” Well, it’s turning out to be leaning that way more than Tatum would like.

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On Monday, the “Jays” saga took another turn when former Celtics player (and current team television analyst) Brian Scalabrine shared some insight on the situation.

“My understanding of this thing is that [Brown] demanded to be traded. Not to the media, but to the organization,” Scalabrine said on his Sirius XM radio show on Monday. “... My understanding is Jaylen Brown went to the organization and had a list of demands. And it was like, ‘You either do this or you trade me.’

“And he was rooting to get traded to Milwaukee, including calling some other teammates about, ‘Hey, man, what do you think of Milwaukee? We should go there.’”

At this point, there is no additional reporting that backs Scalabrine’s comments here about Brown requesting a trade—and apparently recruiting teammates to join him on the Bucks. As a color commentator that spends a lot of time around the organization, Scalabrine’s insight does come with some presumed bias toward the organization. But he also does have some access that most don’t, and I wouldn’t think he’d make this up out of nowhere.

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For Brown, whether that is a fact or not doesn’t matter at this point, he’ll probably have to answer to it. Likely Tuesday morning at the 76ers’ shootaround leading up to their next game against the Pacers.

It didn’t have to be this way. Speculation about a budding rivalry between the two former teammates was exactly that, speculation, until Brown commented “cap” underneath a post of Tatum saying he was shocked when Brown was traded to the 76ers. Brown kept it going over the weekend when he said “there’s no beef” with Tatum but there is “a little lamb chop.”

There’s no personal off-the-court issues between the two players, or so they insist, but there is drama. And the rest of the NBA world isn’t missing out on discussing it.

ESPN’s Marc Spears said Monday that the Celtics “favored” Tatum, and Brown “felt some way about that.” Former NBA All-Star John Wall backed those comments by theorizing Brown took offense last season when Tatum returned from injury and immediately was introduced last in the Celtics’ starting lineup, a spot reserved for the face of the franchise, despite Brown’s play at an MVP level. Jeff Teague, who played with Tatum and Brown in 2020–21, said there was some “competitive tension” between the two players. Lou Williams loves it.

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Rivalries are good for the NBA. Rivalries between former star teammates are even better. It makes an early November matchup in a couple of weeks between the Celtics and 76ers very intriguing. But if this gets out of hand and Brown grows weary of the narrative, he’s got only himself to blame. And now, he must answer: Did he request a trade from the Celtics?

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