How Jayson Tatum Felt About Celtics Letting Grant Williams Walk

If you followed Grant Williams’ career with the Boston Celtics, it’s clear how close a friendship he and Jayson Tatum shared.

Tatum and Williams played together for four seasons, building a sort of love-hate relationship that you see out of brothers. That’s why many wondered how the four-time All-Star felt about the Celtics allowing Williams to join the Dallas Mavericks via a three-team sign-and-trade deal.

The good news? He understands that the NBA is a business.

“Tatum keeps a pretty tight circle, and Williams was probably his closest friend on the team,” Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe reported Thursday. “Over the past two years the Celtics have gone out of their way to appease their franchise cornerstone however they can, and the Williams move appears to run counter to that. But one league source said Wednesday that Tatum understood the decision and is primarily focused on the construction of a championship-level roster around him.”

The bad news? Williams’ departure puts more on the shoulders of Tatum.

Williams and Marcus Smart provided an outspoken leadership for Boston that was invaluable in their quests toward the final four over the last two seasons. That is something that will be missed now that they’re both gone, placing the responsibility to rally the troops on the Celtics’ soft-spoken star.

That might not necessarily be an issue, but it is an unknown.

Tatum will still have some friends around, with former Duke teammate Amile Jefferson joining Joe Mazzulla’s coaching staff. That might even be better for Tatum, anything to replace the Tennessee guy.