Jaylen Brown: 'The system is set up to control the way we think'

Jaylen Brown: “We’re beyond just entertainers. We are also young CEOs, members of our community, philanthropists, leaders. That goes beyond just sports. If you start to cultivate that mindset and think about that in the beginning, who knows what you can be by the time you get to the end? The system is set up to control the way we think. You see our athletes, and they say, ‘Man, just focus on basketball, don’t worry about anything else,’ and then fast forward, 60% of our players, when they retire within the first 10 years, are losing the majority of their wealth. So the system isn’t working.
Source: YouTube

Cameron Tabatabaie @CTabatabaie
Jaylen Brown rapping to Just Do It on stage at his birthday party pic.x.com/35VVOR9iaU – 9:15 PM

NBA on ESPN @ESPNNBA
Jaylen Brown 🤝 Bill Russell
Clutch: The NBA Playoffs presented by NBA2K25 on PS5 | Now on ESPN 🔥 pic.x.com/kPaA29CXuS – 1:47 PM

Jaylen Brown: “I hate the term ‘play the game.’ I know a lot of us do, but it’s 2024, right? It’s a different game than it was in 1985. Similar people are moving pieces, but the game is different. I think that this generation has the press to be able to do a lot of different things that maybe the generation that came before wasn’t able to, through the power of social media, through the lens of just the media in general. Multiple people are starting platforms, multiple people are entrepreneurs and working for themselves. Before, the social norms of Corporate America were like, ‘Man, you gotta dress a certain way, speak a certain way, be a certain way, you gotta have a college degree to be successful.’ This is what I view as playing the game. -via YouTube / October 22, 2024

Brown was certainly deserving of winning the NBA Finals MVP award, but even then, the Celtics star revealed that he felt “shocked” in the immediate aftermath of reaching the league’s mountaintop. “I was shocked. You get so locked in on the journey that you sometimes block everything out. Your focus becomes so adamant that nothing else exists besides what is in front of you and the job that needs to be done. So honestly, when we won, it felt like we had another series to play. It felt like there was another game coming up. My mind was instantly going into preparation mode. It was having a hard time settling on the fact that, ‘Nah, this is it.’ We did it,” Brown said during his sit down with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. -via Clutch Points / October 22, 2024

Jaylen Brown: “I passed on millions of dollars worth of endorsements, not because I don’t think that the money is of value, but I more so think for the next generation and helping athletes kind of understand their value to a different level. Right now, we kind of look at this exchange between endorsements and athletes, like athletes get paid ‘x’ amount of dollars, but they have no creative control, no input, no say-so over the direction of how they want things to go. They don’t own their IPs—nothing of the sort. And as a Players Association rep, I get those phone calls when I’m talking to older players and their frustration about how working with and dealing with these major corporations, how it’s difficult. And I think more people should hear those stories.” -via YouTube / October 22, 2024