Jayson Tatum quells Celtics fans’ worries about split with Jaylen Brown

Jayson Tatum addresses those who want to break up Tatum and fellow Celtics shooter Jaylen Brown: “I think we’re both still very far from our prime.”

Early into the season, Marcus Smart embarrassed young Celtics teammates Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown for their refusal to pass the ball.

But the story is a little more complicated than that, as Tatum and Brown were passing to their teammates during the game in question: their teammates just weren’t making their shots.

Months later and post-trade deadline, Brown and Tatum are still in Boston together, while some blame the two for the Celtics’ 34-26 record. For everyone who believes the two should be broken apart, Tatum has a special message on why “the grass is not always greener” on the other side.

“We’ve had plenty of talks,” Tatum responded with a smile. “I think it’s really picked up this year, especially at the beginning of the season, and we asked each other, like, ‘Do you want to be here?’ And we was both like, ‘Yeah.'”

“[Brown] was like, ‘Bro, I don’t understand,'” Tatum continued. “If you think about it, we’ve had way more success together than this year and what we didn’t accomplish last year. JB’s been to three Conference Finals; I’ve been to two. I think we’re both still very far from our prime. And I think what people don’t understand is, if you want to break us up, the grass is not always greener. There’s not a lot of guys in the NBA like JB. Or, if you want to get rid of me, not to toot my own horn, but I think I’m one of the best players. I couldn’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to have two of the best players that are under 25 on your team. Yeah, there are certain rough patches throughout a season, but we’ve won way more games together than we’ve lost.”

Jayson Tatum addresses desire to see his partnership with Jaylen Brown broken apart

Before All-Star Weekend kicked off in Cleveland, Tatum was a crucial part of a massive 135-87 win over the Philadelphia 76ers. Tatum scored 28 during their Feb. 15 game, while Brown scored 29 points on the night.

It was their biggest margin of victory in their 457-game rivalry against the 76ers—and Brown was feeling good about how well he and Tatum performed.

“We’ll take it,” Brown said. “We got the job done tonight. It feels good.”