Jaylen Brown’s workout in Philly, beef with Joel Embiid, and more things to know about the new Sixers star

The Sixers stunned the NBA by acquiring Jaylen Brown in a trade with the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night.

The five-time NBA All-Star and 2024 Finals MVP has quite a history with the Sixers over his last 10 years in the NBA.

Here are a few of them of note:

Brown was the third overall pick in 2016, the year the Sixers drafted Ben Simmons first overall. The Sixers worked Brown out, but ultimately didn’t stray from the widespread consensus and drafted Ben Simmons. But after the trade, fans uncovered a few old photos of Brown in Sixers gear from that pre-draft process.

“It’s just another prospect who we wanted to see and bring into Philadelphia,” Marc Eversley, vice president of player personnel at the time, said about Brown. “He’s one of those guys who’s up in that area that we’re looking at. He’s a high-level prospect. As you saw today, he shoots the ball extremely well. He had a terrific year at Cal, and we just wanted to get him here in Philly and take another look at him.”

Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley made their late night debut on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon after the Eagles won Super Bowl LIX. The other guest in the building that day? None other than Jaylen Brown.

All three (plus the Eagles offensive line) appeared on the Feb. 11 episode, with Brown on set to promote a sponsor and the upcoming NBA All-Star Game. Now, they’re all in the same city.

Brown is extremely active on social media, under the handle “FCHWPO” on Instagram, Twitter, and Twitch. The handle stands for “faith, consistency, hard work pays off,” which he’s used since before he was drafted.

His Twitch streams helped make him more accessible to his fans, but have also occasionally started drama, including with Joel Embiid.

During Brown’s tenure with the Celtics, they met the Sixers in the playoffs four times. Brown has an all-time playoff record of 14-8 against the Sixers, including three series wins in 2018, 2020, and 2023, and one loss in 2026. He averaged 22.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 2.9 assists in the four series.

One day after the Celtics lost Game 7 to the Sixers in early May, Brown hopped on a Twitch livestream.

“Joel Embiid is a great player, one of the best bigs in [expletive] basketball history,” Brown said. “[He] flops. He knows it. This ain’t breaking news. It is what it is.”

Brown also said that the refs have had an agenda against him, which causes him to get called for offensive fouls on his off-arm push-offs.

“I’ve actually spoke to some refs and they said it was an agenda going into each game,” Brown said. “Anytime Jaylen brings his arm up, just from reputation, just call it. But Paul George does the same thing, Jalen Brunson does the same thing … I could go down the list. It’s a basketball play, whether y’all believe it or not.”

The next biggest question on every Sixers fan’s mind is the lingering seed of hope that LeBron James could sign in Philadelphia.

At Summer League in 2024, Brown was caught on camera telling a friend that he did not believe that James’ son, Bronny, who had just been drafted in the second round by the Lakers, was a pro-caliber player.

Brown later tweeted an apology.

“It’s a flex to have your son alongside you in the NBA, it reflects greatness and longevity!” Brown wrote. “Bronny has all the tools around him to be successful. I look forward to watching his growth.”

“Our relationship has been pretty respectful, besides that [expletive] he said about Bronny at Summer League, but other than that, we’ve been all right,” James said with a joking tone. “I think he went on social media and said something about it. It’s all good.”