Jaylen Brown is still taking aim at the Celtics after being traded to the rival 76ers on July 1, and his latest swipe landed after Jayson Tatum said he was shocked by the deal. Brown answered on Instagram with a cap emoji, a brief but pointed reply that kept the breakup in Boston from fading quietly.
That is why Celtics Score has become more than a post-trade search. Brown is no fringe name cutting loose after a brief stop. He is a five-time All-Star, a champion and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player, which is why every public word now gets weighed against nine seasons in Boston and the title he helped deliver.
The trade itself was dramatic enough on its face. The Celtics sent Brown to the 76ers and brought back 36-year-old Paul George and four draft picks, a return that signaled a clear reset even before Brown started talking. Since then, he has kept the subject alive. He tweeted at Nike in July 2024 after Derrick White was added to the US men’s Olympic basketball team, asking, “this what we’re doing?” He also shared and acknowledged social-media posts last season suggesting the Celtics were just as good without Jayson Tatum as they were with him the year before.
Brown’s own words have added to the sense that he has never quite let go of the frustration around Boston. Hours after the Celtics were bounced in the first round of the playoffs by the 76ers, he called last season the favorite of his career, a line that read to some fans as a challenge, not a tribute. He also suggested that Brad Stevens was not forthcoming with him when trade rumors began percolating, and Stevens later said he has a strict rule against asking players about trading their teammates because, as he put it, “I don’t want to put them in that position.”
That leaves Brown in a strange place: still beloved in Boston, still a champion, but now amplifying the hurt of his departure with every new public jab. The question is not whether fans remember what he did on the floor. It is whether Brown keeps making it harder for them to separate that from the way he left.
