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Jaylen Brown #7 of the Boston Celtics

Here’s what Tracy McGrady, the basketball Hall of Famer and a mentor to Celtics star Jaylen Brown, had to say in the wake of the devastating Boston loss in the first round of the playoffs this year, a loss to the Sixers after the Celtics held a 3-1 series lead.

McGrady, speaking on the podcast he co-hosts with his cousin, Vince Carter, made it pretty clear that there were issues between Brown and the Celtics as an organization. “I think his frustration lies deeply within the organization and other things that we don’t really have the details to,” McGrady said earlier this week. “There’s just been a lot of stuff that I’ve been hearing just going on with the Boston organization, with JB.”

That was the main log in what became a pretty steady fire of speculation around the Celtics this week. Here was one of Brown’s confidants saying he was not happy with the organization, leading to the next logical conclusion–that the Celtics would soon look to find a trade partner for Brown.

Jaylen Browns, Celtics Deny ‘Frustration’

In the time since then, Celtics president Brad Stevens has come out and said he has heard no frustrations from Brown. Then, Brown returned to his livestream to repeat that–he has no issues with the Celtics, he said, and he wants to play the next decade in Boston.

On Saturday, McGrady was in the uncomfortable position of being on the NBC pregame show and having to explain the comments he made about his friend, Jaylen Brown … comments that had been refuted by his friend, Jaylen Brown.

McGrady basically said he was projecting what he thought Brown was feeling.

He explained: “Because I have a relationship with Jaylen Brown, I know him and I know how he acts. So, watching this series, how it unfolds, watching the behavior change—uncharacteristic of who I know Jaylen is. So it looked like he was frustrated to me. When you go into the media and say some of the things that he said, when you go on his streaming and say some of those things, this is me having a relationship with him. This is not me having a conversation—I haven’t talked to Jaylen at all about this. I just know my friend. And when I see certain things, I just see frustration.”

Tracy McGrady Insists Jaylen Brown Is Frustrated With Celtics

That doesn’t line up with what McGrady originally said, which is fine–McGrady spoke out of turn, and it was clear that Brown wanted him to pull back those comments on the Celtics’ behalf. But McGrady still kept insisting that Brown must be frustrated with the Celtics, without having talked to Brown, and seemed to blame fans and other media members for reading too much into it.

McGrady said: “I think people really, not knowing, I am part of the media. So if I see something, I am going to speak about it, and they haven’t separated my friendship vs. me being an analyst an talking about this. So, it was nothing we had a conversation about, it was seeing my friend and what he is saying in front of the media.”

Tracy McGrady: ‘I am Going to Be Frustrated’

Again, McGrady appeared to be walking a line between maintaining his credibility–though it sure looks like he created the “Jaylen is frustrated with the Celtics” narrative out of whole cloth–and retracting his comments about Brown. That does not help Brown, nor does it help the Celtics, because McGrady is still insisting that, on some level, he was right about the frustration.

He added: “As a player I am going to be frustrated about that. When you look at the lineup that was rolled out for a Game 7, I am going to be frustrated about that. I don’t know if you all would have that same sentiment if your coach, the organization comes to you 45 minutes before a Game 7 and tells you one of your guys, your main guy, is not playing. How would you feel about that?”