“If I Were To Do PR Work For Jayson Tatum, I Would Just Remind Everyone Who Led The League In Turnovers Last Year.” - Brian Scalabrine Is Now Fully Entrenched In The Tatum/Brown Drama After Taking More Shots At Jaylen Brown
Because this is the NBA, you knew it was only a matter of time before the Jaylen Brown/Jayson Tatum drama got especially stupid. It was always stupid, but we're only in the infancy stage. I think we all know it's going to get much, much worse before it gets better considering these two teams haven't even played each other yet.
The latest layer to this drama is of course Brian Scalabrine. Did he need to get involved? Probably not. Do I think that after the way Jayson Tatum had been getting dragged by fans and the media for being mature and taking the high road that the organization probably said enough was enough and fought back? Probably. Their avenue to do so was clearly Scal, which brought us plot twists and then plot twists to the plot twist
Plot twists, so hot right now. Plot twists. There's been so much spin over the last few days I'm not even sure what's down and what's up.
Giphy Images.
Advertisement
Scal sort of doubled down on his "reporting" on his radio show yesterday, but that's not the point of this blog. We'll all never know the truth and instead it's just more agenda pushing from all sides. People on the Tatum side believe it, people on the Jaylen side don't. It's all toxic as hell, but that's where we are.
I'll remind you, it was Jaylen Brown that started all of this. That pains me to say, but it's the truth. He knew what he was doing in Bleacher Reports IG comments, he knew what he was doing with the pork chop comment, so I'm not sure he exactly gets to play the victim in all this. It's largely all his own doing.
Over the last few games, the Celts broadcast crew has decided to have a little fun with the whole thing. It's mostly harmless, and also not surprising that the Celts broadcast is sticking up for a Celtics player. This seems to have upset people, which isn't surprising. Sixers fans are all up in arms about it (shocker!). It started with these comments against the Bulls
Which again, is a nothingburger except for the fact that people seemed to be broken brained about this whole thing. Jaylen was the one who said those things, so it's pretty fair game for others to joke around about it.
Then there was last night. Am I surprised that Scal took another shot during that broadcast after the last 48 hours? Not really
Uncalled for or not, this is true. Jaylen did lead the NBA with 259 TOs last year. That's not exactly surprising giving his super high usage, as other high usage guys like Luka (255) and Deni Avdija (253) were right behind him. Also, in the spirit of fairness, it is Jayson Tatum who owns the playoff record for TOs, finishing slightly ahead of LeBron.
I will say, one of the best parts of the start to Jayson Tatum's season has been his ball security. It's been fantastic. A 31% usage and only 7 TOs so far this the entire season. A cool 32:7 AST:TO ratio is pretty damn good if you ask me! Considering he had a 40/4/8 with 0 TO performance in this win, I can see why that may have been on Scal's mind.
Advertisement
When I look at this situation, I'm somewhat conflicted. On one hand, it's time to move on. I'd like for things to focus more on the current team and what they are doing on the court than this beef. We get it. Others may be loving it, but I'm tired and it's already getting stale to just rehash this whole thing over and over. If Jaylen wants to take shots and continue to try and make this a beef, let him. Who cares.
On the other hand, I like the Celts side fighting back. That's what should be happening. Tatum took the high road as he should. But why should everyone else? If someone is going to say Tatum is full of shit and everyone just runs PR for him, then those people are allowed to call that out and take shots back. It's not like these comments are coming out of nowhere, they are a direct response to what Jaylen himself said.
In the end, this is only fueling the fire and making things worse, so I'm sure Scal will eventually get the call to tone things down. It was funny at first, we all had a nice laugh, but we can move on. Perhaps the funniest part of the last few days was that, after all the PR comments, it was Jaylen Brown's PR team that put out a statement
A representative from his team? Could that be… good PR? Almost like Jaylen did the exact thing he's accusing Tatum of? The whole thing continues to just make me sad.
If there's one thing we know, it's that there will of course be a Jaylen response to all this and around and around we'll go. It's exhausting, and I just hope things don't reach a point of no return, but it feels like that's where we might be headed.