Celtics Star Jaylen Brown Goes After Nike For Team USA Snub
NBA fans have been left speechless by the fact that the reigning NBA Finals MVP has been omitted from the Team USA roster. Now, the player is speaking out and highlighting a possible agenda working against him, led by Nike.
Boston Celtics All-Star Jaylen Brown was left off Team USA's roster and named one of the biggest snubs after players like Boston's Jrue Holiday or Miami's Bam Adebayo made the team.
On paper, Brown ranks among the best scorers (23.0 PPG) and two-way players from the 2024 season.
Brown even eclipsed fellow team All-Star Jayson Tatum, who's playing for Team USA, as the pick for Eastern Conference Finals MVP and NBA Finals MVP honors last postseason.
BOSTON - Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics looks on during a game against the Dallas Mavericks on March 1, 2024 at the TD Garden. (Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS - LeBron James of the USA Basketball Men's Team looks on during USAB Men's Training Camp in Las Vegas on July 7, 2024. (Photo by Mercedes Oliver/NBAE via Getty Images)
So, how did Brown stay off the Olympic roster?
Team USA snubbed Jaylen Brown once and did it again after a spot on the team opened up this week. The oft-injured Clippers star Kawhi Leonard rescinded his decision to play for the Olympic team.
Rather than pick Jaylen Brown, Team USA's brass went in a different direction, selecting another one of Brown's Celtics teammates: Derrick White.
Derrick White plays a valuable role on the Celtics, but even on that team, Brown is acknowledged as the better player than White by a wide margin.
Seeing the strings being pulled behind the scenes, Brown posted cryptic messages on X, pointing a big finger at Nike for his omission from Team USA's roster.
The tin foil hats came out when Team USA deliberately omitted Brown and Kyrie Irving. There's a reason these All-Star-level talents were not picked, and Nike appears to be the throughline.
"I'm not afraid of you or your resources," Brown posted on Thursday, adding a detective's emoji after being snubbed a second time by Team USA.
Is Nike money really keeping Jaylen Brown off the team? It wouldn't be surprising if Brown is correct about Nike's past political activism as a factor in keeping him out of the Olympics.
Brown had previously criticized the company for displaying a humiliating lack of double standards regarding Kyrie's fallout with the company over his religious beliefs. When Irving received accusations of being anti-Semitic, Nike took a hard stance by dumping Irving. The company that gave Colin Kaepernick a platform suddenly stood on ethics when it came to Kyrie.
Brown didn't agree with the company's stance and posted on X, "Since when did Nike care about ethics?"
The Celtics player vehemently defended Irving for promoting his religious views.
"There is an interesting distinction between what somebody says verbally and what somebody posts as a link on a platform with no description behind it," Brown added. "Some people will argue there's no difference and some people will argue there is a difference. There's no language in our CBA. There's no rules against it. This is uncharted territory for everybody."
Nike's platform on human rights has been deemed hypocritical by fans and players. Brown has been vocally against the grain with Nike's promoted ethics in the United States, acknowledging that the progressive company is connected to modern-day genocide going on in the CCP-ran Chinese region of Xinjiang. Jaylen Brown and Kyrie Irving have supported the rights of Muslim Uyghurs held in Xinjiang.
If Brown's platform challenging Nike's ethics is keeping him off the Team USA roster—deliberately keeping them from reaching peak performance—sports fans have to wonder how much more influence Nike can enact on other players, teams or leagues.
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