Jaylen Brown just brought the Boston Celtics to within two wins of an NBA title, but he still feels he is not getting his due from the local fanbase. The Celtics star “liked” a notable tweet on Sunday, just over a week after Boston fell to the Golden State Warriors in the Finals. The tweet read, “Jaylen Brown is so disrespected by Celtics fans.” You can see Brown’s “like,” which remains visible on his public page, here. While it is not totally clear what prompted Brown’s “like,” former Celtics big man and current team analyst Brian Scalabrine had recently suggested that the Celtics trade Brown as part of a package for Kevin Durant. That spurred debate among Boston fans over Brown’s true value to the team. – via Larry Brown Sports
This is at least the second time in recent weeks Jaylen has expressed some dissatisfaction with the fan base:
The Celtics got off to a slow start this season, and Brown said he couldn’t help but hear the calls to have him traded. “That trade talk was loud, and most of it came from Boston fans,” Brown told Yahoo Sports.
My thought: he's spending too much time listening to talk radio or reading message boards. For an intelligent person, he's also putting all fans into the same category, instead of recognizing that the criticism / trade ideas come from a very small number of fans.
Here's my worry: you've got an extraordinarily talented player. He's overshadowed by another superstar on the team. He potentially missed the all-star game, and bonus money, due to that. Now, he's repeatedly expressing frustration with the fan base. He's also a guy who cares deeply about racial justice, and Boston is still perceived as a racist city (again, due to the actions of a tiny fraction of members of the fan base... I can't imagine that there are fewer racists in Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, OKC, etc., or pretty much any NBA city):
I think that racism — I think that not every Celtics fan, I know that every Celtics fan in our arena is not a racist. We have people of all walks of life, ethnicities, colors, that are die-hard Celtics fans. So I think by painting every Celtics fan as a racist would be unfair. However, Boston, we've got a lot of work to do, no question. The incarceration rate is ridiculous. The wealth disparity is embarrassing. The inequality in education, specifically in Boston public schools, needs to be better. There's a lack of resources there, lack of opportunity. The tokenism here in Boston needs to be addressed as well. But if we're going to talk about it, and that's what the media is going to bring up, I think a sporting arena, things might exist. But in the real world things exist to far different extremities. So I definitely wanted to share my perspective. And this is my opinion, of course, and people can challenge that. I definitely think, Boston, we've got a lot of work to do.
And, that worry is compounded by this story that has stuck in my head:
"Off the court, me and Kyrie might have started off with a lot of bumps in the road," Brown told Chin during NBC Sports Boston's Celtics Playoff Preview Special. "But as of lately, Kyrie is somebody that I've connected with. Somebody that I call a friend, a brother. Somebody that calls me to pick my brain at this point.
"It wasn't like that when we played together. We bumped heads a lot. But it's funny now in hindsight. Kyrie, he talks to me, hits me up all the time and our relationship has grown a lot since then."
When I see a guy who is frustrated by the fan base, who is overshadowed by another player, who doesn't seem to love the city, and who is pals with Kyrie... I don't see a 15 year relationship, I guess.
So, legit concern? Overblown worry?
