Jaylen Brown said he takes pride in how the Boston Celtics have stayed competitive despite offseason and trade-deadline moves aimed at reducing payroll, as he told Noa Dalzell of CelticsBlog.com.
While Brown believed the team would remain solid, even he has been surprised by how strong their results have been.
“I believed that we were going to be fine, but even to me, it’s like, ‘Damn, we’re the second seed – one of the five best records in the whole league,” the player said.
“Only a few teams have a better record than us in the entire league. We’re a top-five team in the league, coming from the start of the season, when it was [supposed to be] a gap year.”
Boston star emphasized that surpassing preseason expectations has been especially meaningful for the group, pushing back against the narrative that this season was meant to be transitional.
“Everybody was calling it a gap year,” Brown said.
“How do you go from a gap year to top five in the East? That’s a big jump. That’s not a small jump. People want to skip over that. I’m not gonna let you skip over it. That is a big deal.”
Celtics Notes: Tatum, Brown, Film Study https://t.co/uAWjnLZk3r pic.twitter.com/1g4RK9OJ8f
— Hoops Rumors (@HoopsRumors) February 17, 2026
