From Jay to Jay: The Pillars of the Boston Celtics Dream

In mid-June 2017, while spending a few days off in Europe, Jaylen Brown's phone rang at dawn.

On the other side was Danny Ainge, then the Celtics' chief dispatcher.

ceremony

, could have consequences for his future.

The young forward, sleepy, could not answer that first call.

But yes to a second one, which would take place just a few minutes later.

By this time, Brown's brain, often in the grip of wild self-demand, feared the worst.

If Ainge called him directly and at that hour, something serious had to happen.

His mind raced to multiple scenarios involving a transfer and a new start: somewhere else, with different coaches and new teammates.

Ultimately away from Boston, where he was comfortable.

Under that strange feeling, he answered fearfully.

“Jaylen, I need an opinion.

Your opinion”, pointed out Ainge directly.

“You see, we are evaluating options for the

… and I want to know what you think of Jayson Tatum”, confessed the executive.

Ainge, on American soil and surely oblivious to the time difference that separated him from Brown, was making a round of calls, to very different profiles, to obtain information, including particular instincts, about the plan that the Celtics had indirectly already active: bet by Tatum with his pick at number three.

Brown, the towering pick – also the third pick – in the previous year's d

(2016), knew Tatum, who had just completed his freshman year at the prestigious Duke University.

And she knew that she shared, in a certain way, a sporting profile with him.

That of a forward with fantastic physical abilities, defensive potential and a very high ceiling in attack, with the full range of resources open.

However, true to his principles, Brown was sincere and put the future of the project he had just arrived at before his personal aspirations.

Because behind Ainge's apparently innocent doubt there was a real commitment to his own adventure in Boston: in the worst case, Tatum's arrival could limit his role, relegate him to a more secondary role and, as a consequence, frustrate the progression of it.

"Tatum is your man," said Brown bluntly, as journalist Chris Mannix reported a few years ago.

Indeed Tatum, as the leadership of the franchise had decided, landed in Boston that summer.

But Brown not only did not leave the Celtics, but his relevance increased in a sports context, commanded by Brad Stevens, whose idea was born and developed under the impact of his forwards.

Weeks after that conversation with Ainge, the green franchise – which had just reached the Conference Finals for the first time in five years – took on another elite forward, Gordon Hayward, from Utah.

Stevens' plan, still a technician at the time, was based on betting on the physical, tactical and technical versatility that a large group of forwards could provide.

Deep down, Stevens sought to make his structure as flexible as possible based on what he suggested to be the vanguard of basketball: players over two meters capable of taking on any role on the court and, at the same time, changing permanently between all of them. them according to collective need.

However, the suggestive scenario, that experiment of bringing Brown, Tatum and Hayward together, lasted a blink.

Cruel fate came to extinguish that hope.

In the first quarter of the first game of the following season, Hayward suffered a terrible injury that changed his career.

Not only would he go a full year without playing, but when he came back he would never be the same.

Along the way and to top it off, Kyrie Irving's bet, also in the summer of 2017, did not turn out as Boston expected.

Stevens's old dream of

his team to the extreme, promoting a growing value of the elite player, multifunctionality, was getting stuck in the following years despite the recurrent attempts of the Celtics, already holding on to the Tatum-Brown couple, to arrive to the last step: play the Finals.

Until fate has appeared again, this time willing to offer a second chance.

This season, a series of changes in the hierarchy of the organization altered the ways in the roadmap.

Stevens replaced Ainge in his position and Ime Udoka was chosen to take over the bench.

The return of Horford, the bet on White, the consolidation of Smart and the emergence of the Williams -Robert and Grant- contributed to the new momentum, offering the Celtics a path to glory.

One led by the Jay's, the two total forwards who coexist without problems making attack and defense more flexible.

The development of Tatum and Brown has not been simple or linear but, at this point, he admits an evidence: they are two of the best small forwards in the world.

His scoring, creative and defensive abilities, his power to be self-sufficient but at the same time live integrated in a choral scheme by conviction, has marked the way.

Both enjoy, not yet having passed the age of 25, their sweetest stretches of career while lighting up the hope of the Celtics, whose last title came in 2008.

And so that old aspiration of Stevens, to build a champion team based on a pair of forwards that symbolizes the modernity of the game, now takes on maximum value when he, already from the offices, watches the Jay's,

Jay's, bring the title to Boston.

Closing the circle of an identity on the track that he could imagine five years ago and that now reaches its fullness, to the delight of the green parish.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on