Jaylen Brown stood in the hallway outside the locker room in TD Garden as alarms blared. The Boston Celtics had just lost to the undermanned Dallas Mavericks, and something set off the arena’s emergency system shortly before Brown spoke.
“Defensively, we haven’t been as strong as we need to be,” he said in early February. “A part of that is on me as our captain.”
On the surface, it sounded like your typical NBA postgame response. But it stood out to those familiar with Celtics history. The captain?
From 1950 to 2015, naming captains had been a regular part of Celtics franchise history, though one hasn’t officially been announced since. Paul Pierce last prominently filled that role over a decade ago, and Rajon Rondo briefly succeeded him before he was traded. After that, Brad Stevens steered the organization away from captains in an effort to empower everyone. Head coach Joe Mazzulla began the 2023-24 championship season explaining that naming a captain would make the Celtics overly reliant on one player. What if he doesn’t show up? It would have been a big deal—and worthy of a ceremonious announcement—if Brown had joined that lineage and restarted the tradition.
But to be clear, Boston never officially named Brown a captain, which he later clarified at 2025 NBA All-Star Weekend. It’s understood, he said, that he assumes that role because he’s been on the team the longest.
“Even though we don’t necessarily have it written down, the team moves to the things that me and Jayson [Tatum] do,” Brown said. “Even though we have a lot of great players, I feel like my team relies on me to be the leader, the vocal leader. I would say I’ve taken that role and defensively, being the head of the snake, taking on those matchups. My team feeds off that. It’s kind of understood, I guess.”
This season, Brown and Tatum have informally shared the de facto role atop the roster, but Mazzulla stressed that everyone across the veteran-laden roster has a voice. Giving one person the platform, he said, would take away from everyone else’s.
“Adults don’t sit down and talk about, who’s gonna be the leader?” Brown told The Ringer at the premiere of HBO’s Celtics City in Boston last month. “I think people think that. It doesn’t happen like that.”
Brown and Tatum began their careers on veteran rosters that didn’t have captains, with Brown arriving in 2016, one year before Tatum. Injuries thrust them into prominent roles in 2018, though only on the floor. Al Horford, Aron Baynes, Marcus Morris, and Kyrie Irving commanded the locker room. Brown and Tatum, who were both naturally quiet, always had someone to lean on—at least until a rift formed between Irving and the team’s younger players.
When Irving, Horford, and others departed, Kemba Walker arrived to bridge the leadership gap, so Brown and Tatum didn’t yet need to manage the team. Walker stayed for only two seasons, and then Horford returned to Boston—another person Brown and Tatum could defer to. Horford aimed to become more vocal at the time but never aspired to become the captain. He laughed remembering when incoming head coach Ime Udoka announced the Celtics would name two official captains during his first training camp.
“I don’t know, I think the way that I feel about that is that to have a successful team, it’s not only about one person,” Horford told The Ringer. “I think what has separated us over the years, and these past few years, that’s been even more true, is that we have many leaders in this locker room. Different guys that we all respect and we look at. So I think that’s pretty unique with our group that we have. We have several guys that at different times will step up, will speak, will follow what they say, and that’s what makes, I feel like, our group unique.”
The choices seemed obvious with Walker gone. Brown and Tatum’s ascension became the franchise’s focus. Despite the attempt by Udoka, the captain-by-committee approach remained. In fact, it was Marcus Smart who shot the idea down. He held significant stature in the locker room as the longest-tenured Celtic and wasn’t enthused about forgoing his de facto position. Tatum agreed that they didn’t officially need captains.
“Having the title of a captain means nothing, it’s just a title. Anybody can be a captain,” Smart said then. “We’re all captains out there. We lead and show our captainism in different ways. I don’t think it was a problem last year, because we didn’t have captains. We’re all grown here. Gotta go out there and do your job, plain and simple. Everybody’s here to help each other and one goal in mind, and that’s to bring a championship to this team. If we do put out the captains, that’s fine, that’s great. If we don’t, it’s the same thing. It doesn’t really matter.”
Weeks later, Udoka confirmed the Celtics wouldn’t have captains. He said COVID-19 absences and the lineup shuffling they caused superseded the selection process, but it was clear Brown and Tatum hadn’t seized the position the way Udoka had hoped they would.
Brown later identified Smart leaving in 2023 as the turning point in him embracing a leadership role. Brown now views his and Tatum’s past approaches as too quiet. Someone needs to talk, Brown learned after multiple playoff runs with his costar, and since that style didn’t come naturally to either star, Brown made a conscious choice to embrace it.
“Jayson’s more of a lead-by-example [type]; he doesn’t really talk a lot,” Brown said. “He’s opened his mouth a lot more than he has in the past, but Jayson, I wouldn’t say, is extremely vocal, and I haven’t been either, but that’s something I think I’m more comfortable with. I speak a lot on different platforms, so I’ve been able to carry that more a little bit, trying to just keep our morale, speaking life into everybody, talking to everybody on the bench, keeping that good feng shui.”
Brown’s natural growth was made possible by Stevens and Mazzulla changing the franchise’s approach to leadership. Even Udoka, who tried to incorporate Boston’s history with captains, generally favored an atmosphere of collective accountability.
Now in his third season, Mazzulla focuses on specific on- and off-court responsibilities in his conversations with players to establish various roles. He avoids criticizing the players publicly like Udoka did. Mazzulla expects Brown to lead through communication, to impact the game on defense and by attacking in transition, and to set a tone by how he takes care of himself and approaches the less glamorous elements of NBA life. Brown arrives early and stays late for additional reps after shootarounds and practices.
In recent seasons, the Celtics have evolved past some traditions, like video tributes for every returning player and official captains, but the way their leadership dynamic developed still reflects the past. Even the Celtics teams with appointed captains empowered other people to speak up.
Journalist and historian Dart Adams, who became a Celtics fan in the shadow of the team’s 1980s heyday, said he and other fans viewed the captains as mythical figures, recognizable by just one name. Cousy. Russell. Hondo. Celtics fans memorized them like U.S. presidents. Adams pulled out a sheet of paper with the full list of names, with Larry Bird, who served as captain from 1980 to 1992, joining Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, and John Havlicek on Mount Rushmore.
The captain filled a more functional role in the NBA’s early days, with the letter C stitched onto jerseys and that player designated to communicate with officials and make decisions. Cousy became the first for Boston, a title that he held from 1950 to 1963. He prioritized getting teammates involved, spreading the sugar, as he called it, though he later acknowledged his shyness prevented him from being close to Russell, the team’s next captain (1963 to 1969) and eventual player-coach for his final three years.
Russell, who was famously not shy, wrote in his biography, Red & Me, a story about telling a referee to hold up free throws so he could talk to teammate Satch Sanders. Russell then told Satch that his defensive assignment, Bill Bradley, was a “motherf-----” who “thinks you can’t guard him.” Russell formalized how to lead the franchise, with a direct line to patriarch Red Auerbach. They talked in private regularly once Russell became the coach, and Auerbach was careful not to undermine Russell’s authority when he shared his own perspective. Those lessons would be passed down.
“[Auerbach] said, ‘There’s never enough minutes and never enough shots. But you can’t let your personal prejudices determine the politics of who gets to play over anyone else.’ He knew, for instance, that Sam Jones had been my roommate before I was named team captain in ’64, so he was hinting, ‘Don’t be inclined to get Sam more shots just because you like him,’” Russell wrote.
The torch passed from Russell to Havlicek to Cowens to Bird, and when local hero Reggie Lewis joined the franchise in 1987, his connection to the city, rapid ascent on the court, and community leadership made him a natural choice as captain-in-waiting for a franchise that needed to fill a void. Len Bias had died shortly after his selection by the Celtics in the previous year’s draft, and Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish were in the twilight of their careers.
“If Reggie came around, the kids [in Boston] didn’t swear,” Adams remembered. “He just commanded this presence without having to be Michael Jordan, but he had that same kind of aura about him. So the story goes that at the time, everybody’s voting for president, and they decided to have this big debate about who the team should vote for president, and everybody gave their speeches and Reggie gets up and Reggie gives this treatise … he was pretty much a lead-by-example guy, but when Reggie spoke, everybody listened.”
In 1993, Lewis tragically died at age 27 due to a heart condition. He had spent just one season as captain. Instability followed the Celtics into the 1990s, and the captaincy began to lose its luster. The Celtics’ captains were human, no longer mythical figures fans watched on black-and-white TV broadcasts.
Parish filled in for one year after Lewis, but it was late in his career and he left the team after 1994. Dee Brown and Dominique Wilkins shared the captain role after Wilkins arrived in free agency, despite the latter owning no connection to the Celtics other than his battles with Bird when Wilkins played in Atlanta. The shuffling continued. Rick Fox showed promise as captain, wearing no. 17 as a symbol for the championship they aspired to win, then left and won a title with the Lakers. In the Rick Pitino years, Pervis Ellison, Dee Brown, and a young Antoine Walker shared the captaincy while the roster turned over in 1998. Two years later, at training camp, Pitino named Dana Barros and Walker co-captains.
Throughout history, the Celtics’ captain has been determined by on-court abilities, respect in the locker room, and a player’s ties to franchise history. As the position began to lose its historical significance, the Celtics achieved the other two factors by having multiple players share the position: Walker, as Boston’s best player, and Barros, as a veteran voice.
“The dynamic in every locker room really has nothing to do with titles,” Barros, who co-captained the team alongside Walker in 2000, said. “The best player could be the least vocal and never say a word. And someone else who may not play at all, but has been there or has the respect of the team for some reason, whether it be basketball-related or not. … It was definitely something that I know I could look back on and be proud of, but at the time it didn’t resonate in the locker room to where, ‘Dana is the captain and he’s gonna run [things].’ No, I was respected on who I was, my game, and stuff like that. So I don’t think the C on my shirt made me more of an influence in the locker room. I think I was already that influence in the locker room. That’s why I was given the C.”
Barros joked that on the wall in a new Celtics arena years from now, his name will stand out as the captain that doesn’t belong among the legends. Yet his tenure helped restore the importance of the role.
When Paul Pierce joined the Celtics in 1998, he quickly became the team’s tone-setter on the floor and a pointed trash-talker, even if he remained quiet in the locker room. Walker led there, telling teammates they’d go out together if anyone was doing so on the road. On the court, he had the wherewithal to defer to Pierce, sensing that the team needed it.
The Celtics were a competitive team, with Walker letting Pierce know he’d get him the ball late in games, unless he didn’t have it going. Barros heard the duo’s conversations, when Walker told Pierce—this is your team … but remember, I’m a bad MFer too.
Pierce and Walker shared the captaincy for three seasons until Pierce became the captain and the Truth following Walker’s departure. That authority remained even when Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joined the team via trades in 2007, until Pierce had amassed 13 years as captain, tied with Cousy for most in team history.
“Paul would show up like 15 minutes before practice and try to play one-on-ones,” Barros said. “But when KG got there, it was like, ‘OK, you gotta meet me here an hour and a half before practice, we’re gonna do our shooting workouts.’ That’s when things totally flipped. … I remember [Pierce] getting a chef. Then, he got one of those air chamber things that he was sleeping in. And I think at that point in his life, … that’s when the leadership changed from just being on the court to off the court, to in the locker room, to representing the Celtics and understanding what that meant for a team that was now a championship team.”
Brown has seemed interested in reviving the Celtics’ captaincy. He sees himself as the best choice for the vocal role on the roster, since other prominent teammates prefer to lead by example. Last month, Brown spent time at the end of the bench explaining to rookie Baylor Scheierman how Knicks players would bump him while he was defending them.
“Everybody leads in their own way, in their own capacity, but in that locker room, you gotta be able to inspire and move guys to get up every single night,” Brown said. “Not just the guys at the top. You’d think that every single day, people would just wake up and be expected to work, but we’re human. So sometimes you gotta speak life into everybody.”
You heard it in mic’d up segments last postseason too, with Brown hyping up Tatum—“come on Big Deuce, come on”—during games. It carried over to the postgame interviews, where Brown challenged Tatum during his shooting slump and praised him when he emerged in the clinching game of their series against the Pacers—“Jayson Tatum made some big-time plays. That pass behind the back into the corner to Al, hang it in the f------ Louvre. It was crazy.”
In last spring’s Finals, Brown wanted the Luka Doncic matchup, taking on a level of responsibility that helped earn him Finals MVP. Tatum led the team on the ball and in most statistical categories in the Finals. He has continued to lead by example, making his statements behind the scenes and finding a comfort in his quieter approach to leadership. Tatum stressed sacrifice when Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday joined the team last season in the name of winning. Both Brown and Tatum, with their respective leadership styles, helped Porzingis feel empowered to speak up—like when he said the Celtics lacked personality in their bad loss at Toronto in January—but he hasn’t felt the need to do so often.
“These guys have been to the playoffs many times, they’ve been together for a long time, and there’s not a lot to say, honestly,” Porzingis said earlier this season. “When you’re a young team and you have younger guys and there’s a lot for them to learn, there’s much more to say. Here, on this team, as I came in, I was like, these guys know how to play basketball. So there’s no reason to force it, but it’s true that sometimes we lack communication as a team and we need to talk more, whatever it is. So I think that part we can improve. We have a pretty chill and relaxed locker room, but sometimes we need to be more vocal as a group.”
Some past Celtics captains earned their status by emerging as the best player on the team. Tatum fits that mold. Recently, in the locker room after a game, Tatum and Derrick White debated the greatest Celtics of all time. They considered Russell’s rings, and Havlicek’s longevity, but ultimately settled on Larry Bird for all his legendary moments. That’s who Tatum wants to become.
Other Celtics captains earned their status through asserting themselves. Brown, who’s called himself a captain multiple times over the past year, fits that mold. The Celtics need him to fill in the gaps next to Tatum, who, like Bird, leads by example. Brown, more recently, flashed the fire with which Russell filled the captain role.
“I need you to do your job, I need you to be great, I need you to be accountable,” Brown tells his teammates.
“To make sure that, as a group, we’re a bunch of warriors and we’re all on the hunt. I don’t think anybody in our organization can do that the way that I can.”
For more, watch Celtics City, streaming on HBO Max. The first episode debuted March 3 and is available now.
