Jaylen Brown faces the Boston Celtics for the first time - ESPN

FOR MUCH OF his decade-long career with the Boston Celtics, Jaylen Brown spent time answering questions about his role.

Critics wondered whether he and Jayson Tatum could coexist, speculated about whose team it was. Both players, their teammates and coaches were aware of the narrative.

«The media wants to kind of sometimes write the story that pulls us apart,» Brown said in 2021. «But we talk a lot. We don't let it bother us.»

So as Brown — now a Philadelphia 76er after Boston traded him this offseason — sat at Sixers media day a month ago, a reporter asked him: «Do you guys know who the alpha is?»

There were years of frustration loaded into Brown's smirk and two-word response: «Next question.»

Four months into his Sixers tenure, Brown has again fielded questions about his relationship with his former running mate in Boston, partly because of a social media firestorm Brown started. It has led to back-and-forth comments between Brown and Tatum, and a report from NBC Sports and Celtics TV analyst Brian Scalabrine about Brown's «demands» and «trade request» in Boston. Scalabrine later walked back his comments about Brown asking for a trade.

A source with knowledge of the situation told ESPN that there was no truth to the report.

Instead, the source said, Brown discovered his former team had tried — and failed — to trade him to the Milwaukee Bucks while he was on vacation over the summer. The one thing Brown did ask for, the source said, was to be involved in the process of where he was traded. The Celtics ignored the request and sent him 300 miles southwest to Philadelphia.

So Brown finds himself in a familiar position: On a team he didn't choose laden with star power, trying to establish a role that will lead his squad to