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Brian Scalabrine Already Walks Back His Fake Jaylen Brown Trade Request Report
By Sean Barnard
Published:
The fallout of Jaylen Brown’s exit with the Boston Celtics and his deteriorated relationship with Jayson Tatum may very well be the story of the NBA season. Don’t expect these headlines to stop just yet, with the new Sixers’ star certainly not ducking the conversation whenever he is asked.
This is especially true as the Boston media digs its heels in to defend the franchise, clearly taking offense at the way Brown has carried himself since the trade went down. Celtics TV analyst Brian Scalabrine recently stirred the pot while appearing on The Starting Lineup podcast on SiriusXM Radio with Frank Isola. After months of reporting indicating that the 2023-24 NBA Finals MVP did not request a trade from the franchise that drafted him, Scalabrine offered a very different account:
To provide the full context of Scalabrine’s comments:
“My understanding of this thing is he demanded to be traded. Not through the media, but to the organization.. I think Jaylen Brown lives in his own reality. Like because it wasn’t being documented that he demanded to be traded, then I don’t think that anybody thinks that. Now he can say that it was Tatum’s fault. Like he can just make stuff up. But 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 saying ‘Hey man what do you think about Milwaukee? We should go there. So my point of all this is like if you are actually doing that and going to say that Tatum is the one that’s lying, like your whole basis of this thing is a lie.”
It took mere hours after this quote made its way around the internet before Scalabrine walked back his characterization of the situation. While hosting the pregame coverage ahead of the Celtics’ matchup with the Bulls, he backpedaled far more effectively than any member of the Eagles’ secondary has this year:
“After the 48 phone calls I fended today, technically he didn’t demand to be traded…I summed up the entire word salad and kept it simple, but I think that’s what kinda got me in trouble,” Scalabrine said on the pregame show.
Brown himself was also quick to dismiss these accusations:
There is a ton of context that this entire conversation deserves, beyond what I can touch on in a single article here.
It is not exactly a secret that Tatum and Brown were not best friends during their 10 years together with the Celtics. They were co-workers who did not hang out off the court, but were necessary for each reaching the championship mountaintop that they achieved. Flashback to before this title success, and there were plenty of talking points about whether the duo needed to be split up because their skill sets were too similar.
It also feels pretty obvious that if Brown had formally requested a trade, it would have been publicly reported by this point. Plenty of Celtics fans have screamed in my comments that Boston operates differently and is more tight-lipped than most organizations when conducting business. While there is obvious value in keeping trade discussions private, the Celtics have had plenty of time to shape the narrative since the deal went down.
The trade was widely viewed as a financially motivated move, with Paul George going to Boston as the primary player in the return package. Yet neither Brad Stevens nor another member of the organization has publicly suggested that Brown wanted out of Boston.
Brown himself is far from tight-lipped and talked through his flow of emotions publicly and openly on his Twitch channel. There was an honest feel to the entire conversation as he came to terms with the trade, with some frustrations expressed about how the whole process went down. Never once did he mention requesting a trade, and he has expressed clearly on plenty of occasions that he wanted to finish his career in Boston:
With that said, it isn’t exactly a surprise that Brown was dealt after last season. While the terms of the “demands” that he expressed to the organization that Scalabrine referred to are unclear, it feels fair to connect that his looming contract extension was a key part of the entire conversation.
Brown currently has three years remaining on his contract, valued at $57.7 million, $61.6 million, and $65.6 million, which will take him through the 2028-29 season. He was at one point the highest-paid player in the NBA. The five-time All-Star was eligible for a two-year extension worth roughly $142 million that he could have signed just a few days before the trade occurred.
That is an intimidating dollar figure to blink at for any player, and it is fair to have some pause. Based on the way the Celtics organization stated that the trade was financially motivated, and the constraints of the new CBA, this checks out.
But it feels like far too much is made of the Tatum-versus-Brown debate from a “Whose team is it?” perspective.
There is a completely fair case that Tatum is the superior basketball player. But the disrespect Brown appears to feel is based on his treatment by the organization, not necessarily on Tatum himself.
Brown was drafted a year earlier, with both players selected as the third overall pick in their respective drafts. Brown earned his stripes his rookie season, starting just 20 games and playing 17.2 minutes per night, while Tatum started all 80 games of his rookie season and was touted as a clear face of the franchise. But it was Brown who was named Finals MVP when the team did get over the championship hump, as well as Conference Finals MVP before this 2023-24 championship.
Expectations were modest last season, as Tatum was expected to miss the entire year while recovering from the torn Achilles tendon he suffered during the 2025 playoffs. The Celtics’ preseason win total was set at 41.5, and the organization made multiple salary-cutting moves amid the expectation that it would not be a true contender. Brown went on to have the best season of his career, averaging 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 5.1 assists while leading the Celtics to a 56-26 record and the second seed in the Eastern Conference. He also finished sixth in MVP voting.
Tatum made his return for 16 final games in the regular season with some playoff hopes now on the table, which is admirable in itself given how long athletes can be sidelined with this issue and the importance of quick-twitch movements in basketball. But the Celtics blew the 3-1 playoff lead against this Sixers team. When the crucial Game 7 in Boston occurred, it was Brown left to lead the charge himself once again, with Tatum dealing with calf soreness and knee stiffness and unable to suit up.
There is surely plenty behind the scenes that occurred between Brown, Tatum, and the organization as a whole that matters greatly in this conversation. The new Sixers’ star had heard his name floated in trade rumors on just about an annual basis, which he took major issue with. This was true even after the championship and after last year’s successful season. It felt like it was five minutes after the playoff exit before Brown was being talked about as a major trade piece in the Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes, before the former Bucks’ star was eventually traded to the Heat.
The perception from Brown surely seems that Tatum was privy to internal conversations in a way that he was not. He wanted to be treated as an equal in a way the organization did not view them. It is also more than a throwaway point that the consistent effort made by Brown to be a pillar in the Boston community, with constant charity events and several nonprofit organizations launched. This is not the responsibility of an athlete the way it is sometimes presented, but Tatum is a contrast in this comparison.
Ultimately, if it motivates Brown to centralize all of his frustrations on Tatum directly, I am all for it. The Celtics’ star has done his best to downplay any issues with his former teammate, and it is an impossible situation to be in based on his standing with the franchise. He can say he had no idea Brown would be traded, and this may or may not be true. Tatum also could have done a much better job turning down the temperature when things got awkward throughout the years.
Given what we know and are learning about Brown, he will surely have some thoughts on the recent “reports” making their way around the internet. He very well may make his own podium by jumping on a Twitch stream to give his side of things. You can say it is only semantics depending on what the conversations were like with the Boston front office.
But the Celtics and Sixers will get quite familiar with these new iterations of each team in the coming months. They will first face off on November 10th in Philadelphia and play three additional times during the regular season. It also feels like the fate of the universe must align for a postseason battle between these two sides. They have faced off in four of the last nine postseasons, and another chapter in this historic rivalry has a few important new storylines.
Get out your lamb chops and gravy ready.
Sean Barnard has covered the Philadelphia 76ers and general Philly Sports for over six years in a variety of roles and for multiple outlets. Currently works as a Content Writer for DraftKings Network, Sixers/NBA Insider for Philadelphia's Fox Sports the Gambler, and co-host of Sixers & Phillies Digest on Youtube. Forever Trusting the Process.