Sometimes the finest choices are the ones that are never taken, such as the Celtics dealing Jaylen Brown for Kevin Durant or exploring a coaching change after losing in the Eastern Conference finals last season. The Celtics remained true to their ideals and basic values all the way to their 18th championship. Brown rose to superstardom, winning MVP of the Eastern Conference finals and then the NBA Finals for his outstanding defense against Luka Doncic.
Brown has taken eight years to get his deserved respect as a star in this league, and even the full respect of those in this city. The boos were loud when majority governor Wyc Grousbeck announced Brown’s name as the Celtics’ 2016 first-round pick to a group of season ticket-holders at a draft party.
Brown faced criticism throughout this season after signing a five-year, $304 million agreement last summer. It took the best season of his career and a deep dive into his skill set to become a plus defender and eliminate the pessimism.
The sojourn to NBA champion even made the expressive Brown speechless. There have been perceptions about arrogance, about whether he embraced Boston, or whether he was a franchise-caliber player.
Winning quiets all of those concerns.
“I absolutely can’t [put it into words], man,” he said. “Just the story and the journey is awesome. You know, just being drafted here in Boston, like a lot of the people probably didn’t watch me play in the Pac-12 at Cal. It led to a lot of people feeling a way about that.
“I just came in, kept my head down, and told myself, ‘I’ll just keep working.'” And to be here now, after all of the years, all of the doubt, all of the ups and downs, all of the verdicts, all of the everything, just makes the narrative all the sweeter.” During Friday’s victory parade, Brown wore a T-shirt that read, “State Your Source,” a request he made on social media to ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, who claimed a “source” told him Brown is not marketable because he is difficult to work with.
After the Game 5 win, Brown further expressed his admiration for teammate Jayson Tatum. The two are close but they are different. They have a high respect for each other and they have had their relationship constantly challenged — again, until this championship.
“But I can’t even put it into words. Like, it just feels great,” Brown said.
“Just our growth together. We’ve been through a lot. We’ve been playing together for seven years now. We’ve been through a lot, the losses, the expectations. The media have said all different types of things: We can’t play together, we are never going to win. We heard it all. But we just blocked it out, and we just kept going. I trusted him. He trusted me. And we did it together.
“To get to this point and share that experience with JT is just awesome, you know what I mean? It’s amazing, and it feels great.”
