I think Brown would be offended. Just a feeling
Yep, it's little brother syndrome.
It's interesting how the ego works in the NBA.
KG, Ray and PP said that they couldn't have come together earlier in their careers, essentially for ego reasons.
Los Angeles wasn't big enough for Shaq and Kobe. Starbury and KG, etc. Lots of other examples.
More recently, you've got Kyrie demanding a trade off of the Cavaliers, saying that Lebron was "sonning" him. A handful of years of discontent later, Kyrie seemingly wants to link back up with Lebron again.
If -- and it's very speculative -- JB feels resentment that JT is untouchable and he's expendable, I get it. I'm sure many of us have felt professional resentment before, right?
It would be understandable for JB to feel resentment. People are ambitious and to get to the NBA, let alone become a star, you really need to think of yourself as the best. I said it was little brother syndrome, but if you think about it Jaylen is really the big brother, he was drafted a year earlier, he had played in a finals before Tatum was drafted. I remember him saying he was going to take JT under his wing his rookie season, show him the ropes, because he was the sophomore and JT was the freshman.
Then JT starts to surpass him statistically as well as usage wise, and also in the minds of the fans. During that star crossed season of 2018-19, JB is the one that gets benched along with Gordon. After Cryrie left it became "JT's team". JT's name was never in any trade rumors, he was the untouchable one (other than during the AD saga). JB was always the expendable one. Robin to Tatum's batman. JT gets picked as an All-Star first, and again this past season. JT gets the max contract. JT gets the Team USA callup to the Olympics. Then in the Finals JB is the best player on the team but the headlines are all still about JT and how he underperformed.
Given that backdrop, and knowing how competitive JB is, I can understand why he would feel resentment. But to be a successful team players have to put those personal resentments away for the good of the team. I thought that during that second half of the season run they had managed to do all that, understand everyone's place in the hierarchy. But those things never really go away. As you say we all experience it in professional life, you get hired to a position and you expect to be promoted in a couple of years, then they hire some hotshot kid who ends up taking the promotion you thought was yours, and gets all the plum projects. I think JB knows he's in a great environment in Boston, with a chance to compete for multiple championships, with a solid team that he will be a main part of. But it's understandable if he feels he wants to be The Man somewhere else. Many players have done that. Cryrie as you mentioned, and others.
It becomes a head vs heart decision.
