Joe Mazzulla grieves Jaylen Brown trade, believes Celtics star made him a better coach

It might seem like the NBA is a cold place where decade-long relationships can be cast aside at the first moment it becomes advantageous to do so. But in the case of the Boston Celtics trading star forward Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla made it clear that he will not only miss Brown’s tenure with the team, he credited it with making him a better version of himself in a recent interview with New York Times senior reporter Jay King.

“There needs to be a grieving process for losing not just a player in Jaylen, but a person in Jaylen,” said the Celtics coach. “There needs to be a grieving process that this guy, what he has done on the court and what he’s done in the community and what he’s done for the city of Boston, there should be a grieving process”

“But the … gray area is throughout that loss, you’re also gaining,” suggested Mazzulla, presumably referencing the trade’s return and the optionality it was made to create. “We’re getting three guys back. One guy was a champion. So, we can leverage the experience that he had in the current moment of like, ‘Hey, what worked for you guys? How can we learn from little stuff that you did?'”

Even with the returning elements of the Brown trade, Mazzulla insisted his time with Brown has made him a better coach. “I know that for a fact,” he said. “Something like that is going to be difficult. But I think if you could just get through it and act as if nothing happened, then that’s when I think that you’re not in it for the right reasons.”

“The biggest thing was just his competitiveness,” Mazzulla shared later. “He wasn’t afraid to push you. That was for teammates. That was for me. That was for people. He wasn’t afraid to hold you accountable to a higher standard. And when you have the opportunity to coach guys like that, it just makes you better.”

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This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Joe Mazzulla grieves Jaylen Brown trade, believes Celtics star made him a better coach