Grant Hill on leaving Jaylen Brown off Team USA: “to imply that like a shoe company told me what to do. Now you questioning my character, and that was the things that was weird.”
it actually makes sense that he was left off because his playstyle too redundant with the other offensive engines in the team. its why the back of the roster gets filled out with jrue holidays and derrick whites.
I mean even Tatum didn’t really get minutes and he’s just a bigger better Jaylen
Can’t lie that was hilarious looking back. Celtics fans just won a title but their best player was warming up the bench and their FMVP didn’t even make the team. What a weird summer for them
JB and JT are legit talents but this playoffs showed that you need your role players to show out. i feel like white being bad offensively is an underrated story
White was so overdue for a bad postseason series, that’s why nobody is really talking about it. Same thing with Pritchard. It was more just awful timing that both of the Celtics most important role players had duds of series at the same exact time.
Like over the previous 3 seasons White’s postseason TS% was 67%, 62%, 64% across 50 total games. He’s forgiven.
he was bad the whole year on offense though. it wasn’t just regression, he struggled to shoot. he’s been a 38% 3 point guy since boston and averaged just below 33 last year. went from a 60% TS guy to 53. i didn’t mention his regular season originally because they still finished 4th in net rating. just can’t be that bad in the playoffs
Yep, he had a bad year. We will see, but personally I think he’s a rhythm guy and the Tatum injury fucked things up for him. First missing Tatum for 75% of the season and then the lineup was all over the place for the last 25%.
I’ll be pretty surprised if he doesn’t bounce back. Very odd to go high volume 38%-40% for 3 years then suddenly forget how to shoot.
especially since he’s an elite FT shooter. i didn’t look into his shot quality too much but i wonder if that was impacted with JB having to take the reins and not being the most effective playmaker
I feel like his case is pretty common honestly, I can think of plenty of elite role players that can’t scale up their offensive game to be a legit 2nd/3rd offensive option.
Just off the top of my head, Trevor Ariza parlayed his excellent 2009 postseason run with the Lakers to a larger role with Houston and hit his ceiling almost immediately. Aaron Gordon is a more recent example in the other direction.
Yeah usually you have to get traded to Orlando to fall off that bad
One of the coldest lines my father ever told me as a die hard C’s fan. “It took everything to go wrong for us and everything to go right for Philly for those boys to finally beat us.” Re: Duds from D-White, PP and Vuc and a load managed Tatum and Jojo and PG being the healthiest they’ve been in a playoff series.
Eh, I think it just showed the limitations of his offensive game. He’s great as a 3rd/4th option, struggles as a 2nd option. He’d probably be terrible as a first option. Most players have their level and he found his.
Kinda felt weird no team tried to trade for him though when he looks so good as 3rd option and try him at 2. It obviously wouldn’t work out but he looked so good from 3 in a lot of series.
Celtics weren’t about to trade him
He was also lowkey not great on defense in the playoffs. Maxey’s a bad match because as good of an on ball defender he is, he’s just not built to run around chasing Maxey for 30 minutes.
100% but that was because Tatum is a shot creator for others in a way that Jaylen Brown is not. That’s why he is consistently #1 or #2 on the team in assists. Tatum’s gravity as a scorer is up there with the best in the NBA.
He wasn’t bad on offense, but he certainly shot terrible. Everything else was good. Sound decision making, read the floor well, operated and orchestrated the offense/within the offense well, low turnovers, etc. Just an ice bucket from distance.
Yes, and just because the shot wasn’t falling doesn’t mean defenses didn’t treat him like it was. No one was leaving him open, having 32% White out there opens up the offense for others just as much as having 38% White
It’s cause defensive cover changed and he’s their 2nd best offensive player so he gets the 2nd best defender on the other team guarding him.
Nobody double teams JB the way they do JT. Derrick White didn’t get the easy shots he was used to.
This is exactly it, Derrick had been so consistently good that eventually he wasn’t going to be. Lol. He was incredible there for a stretch. Then had a bad year.
It’s in my opinion why team USA has kinda struggled recently. They need players who play like role players. I think the fact that the young USA players aren’t 1a type guys is going to work out great
Chet, Mobley, JDub, Jalen Johnson, Jalen Duren are all guys who are good without the ball
Team USA has always relied on star power to overwhelm the opposition.
It’s good to have good role players but when Steph/Bron/KD are gone it won’t be easy to win consistently in tournaments if you don’t have a massive talent advantage. Without the three of them Team USA would’ve lost to Serbia and probably France.
Booker’s performance last Olympics was impressive in that regard
It’s an underrated story because the NBA wonks love Derrick White. Its seemed for like 18 months there was a monthly think piece about how Derrick White is better than half the superstars in the league. Worse miss-use of analytics than the Jaylen Brown conversation.
It shows that the 2024 Celtics were a great-built team.
I said it at the time as a compliment and some friends couldn’t take it as anything but an insult. Brad Stevens made that roster “Tatum-proof”
They had so much talent and depth that it wouldn’t matter if he played like a true 1A and it worked.
But of course people took that as “Tatum isn’t a 1A”
You’re making it sound like, even Tatum couldn’t screw this up, when he actually is a 1a and has been one of the best players in the league for years. The Celtics lost their 3rd best player for pretty much the whole postseason and still rolled through everybody.
What Brad did was put together such a dominant team that they could sustain a major injury and still win.
Kinda funny how the KP injury justs gets ignored. Just casually missing a 7’3 elite rim protector and spacer, not much
You ever seen the office ? If I told you I made something Michael-proof would you take that as a compliment
Am I michael? If not, then yes
I don’t totally disagree.
You can’t argue with the Celtics success, but they spent the last 9 years more balancing Tatum in various ways instead of accentuating and supporting him. This upcoming season is literally the first time the Celtics are putting out a roster that actually seeks to maximize Tatum’s skills. It’s an abrupt shift, and obviously Jaylen was a huge part of it. But if it works, Tatum will shine.
So when the bulls got pippen and rodman, did they make the roster “Jordan-Proof”? Because if i remember correctly, the greatest couldnt win shit until he had a roster lmao
He only led the team in every single stat
What was funny was Celtics fans ready to burn down the entire system and root for Team USA to fail as if Derrick White and Jrue Holiday weren’t also on the team.
Edit - Actual conversations from the Celtics subreddit during and after the Serbia game, since people don’t believe me for some reason.
That’s not true lol
I personally knew one, and another one that was borderline, so it’s definitely true lmfao
NBA fanfom is ridiculously player centric
It’s definitely false lmfao
My girlfriend (you wouldn’t know her, I met her at camp) knows those guys too and she says you’re lying—they were totally chill.
The funny thing about the Internet, is enough idiots post on any topic imaginable in a way that lets you support literally any belief you want.
Realistically, no, I’m pretty certain 99% of Celtics fans were not actually rooting against Team USA because Tatum wasn’t playing enough. But if you want to focus on the 1%, go nuts. Just know that is akin to saying all Knicks fans rip jerseys off opposing fans.
It doesn’t matter what the situation is you will always be able to find a loud minority of Boston sports fans ready to burn down a system and root for failure.
It’s tradition.
As a Celtics fan, I couldn’t care less. With Olympics, you’re rooting for your nation. I didn’t care who was on the floor, I just wanted to win.
I don’t know a single Celtics fan who was genuinely upset Tatum didn’t get played much. Everyone was just enjoying the sport. Finally getting to root for curry and watch him put France to bed was an all-time sports moment.
Also, I just trust the USA coaching staff.
How did you feel about Brown not being called up?
Likewise. Couldn’t care less. I mean, we had three guys from our current team that year on the roster. That’s crazy.
Again, Olympic basketball is different. You just want to see gold. It’s also so exciting to see players who may never be on the same team, play together.
Curry and LeBron were phenomenal. All I have are awesome memories from that Olympic run.
I’m happy Spo will be head coach next and not Kerr tho. Not sure why Kerr would be picked over Spo, but I don’t know enough about that stuff.
Thats nuts. Tatum should have played, it was a stupid decision. Fortunately, Tatum isn’t a loud mouth who would shout disrespectful!
He has a gold medal just like the rest of the team. He did play a tiny bit. I’m sure he’s doing just fine.
Meanwhile their 3rd and 4th best players were key cogs on that team.
I heard he’s the sixth best player on the Celtics
Math checks out
He’s the 6th best player on the average team, but really would be the 8th or 9th best player on such an analytically strong team like those Celtics.
Even when he got minutes he seemed to be playing way below his own standards
That’s putting it nicely, he was hot garbage
Makes sense given he just finished a deep playoff run too
He didn’t get minutes because he was ass in the exhibition games. If he played well he would’ve got more mins
He didn’t get minutes because he plays the same position as two NBA and basketball legends on the same roster in their last chance to play as olympians. Kerr wasn’t in game planning meetings like “Well, Jason Tatum is ass, so I guess we go with Lebron” and I doubt he was interested in “Hey KD, mind sitting so Tatum can impress reddit?”
It’s really not that hard to understand and it says nothing about Tatum as a player.
Basketball fans sometimes think like having 11 quarterbacks would make the best football team.
The sport is more positionally fluid than the NFL, but people really need to do away with the idea that first option scorer is a qualifier and not just another role on the team.
Someone could argue that Jaylen Brown is a better player than some of the guys on the team in a vacuum, but they don’t play these games 1v1 or 1v5.
Not just fans. Some GMs do too
To a point, but I think GMs have gotten a lot smarter. Yes, there are still faulty experiments where teams think maxing ppg will equate to contending like the KD/Kyrie/Harden Nets or the Booker/Beal/KD Suns.
At the same time, look at the trade packages for Gobert, Jrue (twice), and Walker Kessler. Then look at what Jaylen Brown went for. There’s an understanding that other qualities drive winning besides just taking a lot of shots and having high PPG. “Role players” can be valued above “stars”.
Many fans still view the game through a “Does he score?” lens, which partially explains the hysterical reactions to the Brown trade. The idea that a prolific volume scorer could be sold cheap runs contrary to how a lot of people have been taught to think about the game.
KD/Kyrie/Harden is a bad example for what you’re describing. That was a legit great team that could have won a title, it’s not anything like the booker/beal/kd Suns.
The GM version is convincing themselves that a QB is actually just as capable at being a lineman as a lineman, it’s just that no one else has been smart enough to pull it off.
how bout 9 ohtanis?
Sure you’ve got pitching. Yeah, hitting, baserunning, and power for days.
But who’s gonna lay down a solid bunt? Huh?
Ohtani is bunting .555 so…Ohtani.
I don’t let bein wrong get in the way of a mediocre joke!
(That’s pretty wild, though. I’m not super shocked, but that’s more bunts than I’d have assumed.)
The bunt is still a huge part of Japanese baseball, I’ve never seen a Japanese player who can’t bunt
tbh, I didn’t have a doubt about the ability, just the frequency. Though now that I’ve looked, fangraphs has it at 9 career bunt attempts, and 3 bunt hits. Which is close enough to 1 a year… which when you hit like Shohei, still seems like a lot.
I’d like to have seen Peyton Manning at CB
The raptors have been doing their best to prove you wrong
82-0 taught you this, if you didnt know already
Yup. The last time we just went with redundant big names that played the same style and not enough defensive guys we got cooked. They had to send in the redeem team. Bam has won 2 gold now… I think.. because his skillset fits really well next to all the scorers team USA has.
Ironically that’s what made Carmelo so elite in college and International. Absolutely able to dominate smaller 3’s in the post and a shorter 3pt line.
Booker’s transformation to a role player was incredible.
Melo at the Olympics was an elite catch and shoot guy too. completely different role than when he was the main offensive engine.
probably helped that he he had significant preexisting personal relationships with a lot of the main guys so it was easy for him to go “oh you just want to make open looks for me to shoot? i’m in”
not to mention he played amazing man on man defense, dude was locked in and just wish we got to see that Melo more often then the score first ISO player in NY.
Before the Olympics, some player – Kuz? – made a social media post saying that the Olympic team needed someone who would play defense and stand in the corners and shoot threes. A couple minutes later. Booker responds. “I’ll do it.” And he did it. Much respect.
I think Bam is actually proof of why that mindset doesn’t work.
The Team USA group really tries to overthink things, and it’s not done in the smartest or most consistent way.
Team USA left Bam off the FIBA team for the exact same reason. That’s why they went with Mason Plumlee instead. During FIBA, they wanted big bodies that could compete with the large, physical Euro-bigs but then went with Myles Turner and Mason Plumlee, neither of which could stay on the floor. One was too soft and the other too slow/old. That meant 6’5 SG Jaylen Brown then had to play out of position guarding those Euro-bigs instead, and the team underperformed.
Despite being very clearly the most talented country in the sport, they were the only team without a big man who could stay on the floor, purely because of the decisions made by management.
In the 2024 Olympics, they wanted Kawhi, but then when he had to pull out due to injuries they suddenly didn’t want the All-NBA wing who happens to play most like Kawhi. It was less about play-style and more about Kawhi fitting their moment, they wanted to give the 2010s guys their big send-off.
They also struggled to make things work with Jayson Tatum. There was talk that his game wasn’t suited to the Olympic style, even though we’d just seen him have an All-Time great Olympic performance for the prior team (he’s top 10 and right in between Kobe and LeBron for highest-scoring Olympic runs).
Team USA has pretty much always had 3-4 big wings in almost every iteration for decades. Suddenly in 2024 the idea of having 3-4 wings was crazy and unthinkable, and everyone knows there’s only room for 2. The big wings are usually the toughest part of Team USA, no other country has multiple 6’6 - 6’10 two-way guys, it makes them a matchup nightmare.
People took the gold medal as proof that they were right, but the USA has won 17⁄21 Olympic gold medals, with a silver and two bronzes thrown in. When you win 80% of the time and podium 95% of the time, it doesn’t really matter what you do. They were going to win regardless. 2024 was really in spite of the decision-making.
For all the talk of chemistry and roles, it wasn’t a particularly cohesive team, and they just brute-forced their way to wins via heroics from their big 3.
Grant Hill might be a HOF player, but we’ve seen how most HOF players handle roster construction.
Isiah Thomas in NY. Magic in LA. Jordan in Charlotte.
JT was also just playing like hot ass when he got minutes. That might have been due to inconsistent role or whatever but his minutes were huge negatives.
Good stuff.
Damn, I was about to say OG Anunoby would be a key target for the 2028 Olympics but this guy was born in London. TIL
He would’ve been a problem for international teams.
I swear people forget Jrue started and was integral to that gold medal
This was obvious looking at the roster construction for team USA. Idk who made the decisions but they clearly prioritized getting big names for marketing instead of on-court fit. They are so glad kawhi couldn’t play and could get a sub. Just made no sense
Healthy Kawhi can fit in regardless. He is a top 5 all time wing defender
Yes too ball dominant in an already outstanding crew who are also mostly ball dominant- just team balance/seniority at that point
That’s makes no sense because White was only on the team because Kawhi dropped out. If they felt the play style was too redundant why was Kawhi picked in the first place.
Because Kawhi has loads of experience as a low usage, DPOY-caliber player and elite shooter
It’s not a direct sub, it’s not like White went into the starting lineup.
Kawhi is also an elite shooter and defender. Kawhi going down meant more opportunity for Booker and Ant.
Same with Brunson. Ant Edwards is obviously not better but he is more additive to that roster
That is super unusual though. The roster is usually jam packed with as much offensive talent and as many big names as possible. The back of the roster never been filled with role players unless absolutely necessary.
Tatum didn’t play and he’s a better version of Brown. I don’t really see what he would have brought to the team that they didn’t have
Exactly. You dont bring a guy like that on the team unless he’s transcendent at something.
Its one of the reasons we started losing international games in the first place decades ago.
Jaylen is low key a quack. There’s been a handful of examples of him having conspiracy theories where he thinks the refs or the league have an agenda against him. He was also quietly anti vax and spent the entire Finals run promoting some plastic snake oil necklace that claims to heal you with magnets and an iphone app.
He’s like a more charming Kyrie Irving. Probably explains why he defended both Kyrie and Kanye during their antisemitism things, because he himself has some weird ass world views.
It feels like only a matter of time before he says something on Twitch that pushes things too far.
Nothing low-key about it. Dude was not only obnoxious in his public commentary about basketball all of last season, but has also peddled conspiracy theories and pseudo-intellectualism for years.
Also, I don’t get why Jaylen doesn’t have the self-awareness to realize that his Nike conspiracy tweets after getting left off the Olympic team are a good illustration of why they might NOT want him.
The main reason was obviously the basketball fit (they had enough ball-dominant guys such that he’d be redundant), but chemistry matters too. If two players are equal on the court, you’d probably prefer to not pick a weirdo who might throw off the vibes.
He’s like Kyrie with better PR in some ways. Stayed with Kanye West’s sports agency at the height of the Nazi shit.
Dude has always been that know it all friend who thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. The kind that you left out in a group chat
He was reposting an openly anti-Semitic BHI groups pictures few years ago to celebrate Kyrie coming back lmao he’s been a high key quack for a long time
The only difference is Kyrie is very blatant about what he believes. Jaylen leaves a lot up to interpretation.
He’ll have moments where it seems like he doesn’t take himself too seriously and can laugh at himself and those moments go a long way toward making him more likable than Kyrie but, yeah, when things aren’t going his way he does seem to revert to the idea that things didn’t go his way because there were larger forces at work conspiring against him.
It’s actually high key as fuck. He’s like the Jaden smith “I’m 14 and this is deep” meme. It’s like when you’re in high school and college, and you start learning about the underlying motives for many different things (while smoking lots of weed perhaps). Like how the US imported Nazi scientists after ww2, or how crack may have been introduced by the government, or how the cops got off for beating up Rodney king, or that the founding fathers had slaves, or weird stuff about the jfk assassination, or how the government lied about going into Iraq, and on and on and on (with lots of other countries too). It leads to your own intellectual renaissance. You start to question EVERYTHING. You might become pretty freaking socialist and anti government for a while. And this is good as a TRANSIENT state of mind. Like a total demolition of your mental structure as you rebuild it into something more stable. But so many people don’t do the work to actually read a lot and have life experiences to come back to center. And they run with the new found enlightenment. They think that’s the secret of everything. Now the moon landing is fake and the earth is flat. And even though you make hundreds of millions of dollars and are gifted lecturing spots at prestigious universities you have no business speaking at, the world is scheming against you. And that’s Jalen brown and kyrie Irving. They smoked a joint and watched the zeitgeist and now they think they see everything.
Only disagreeing with “low key”. He’s a high key quack.
His quackness is high-key.
He’s the intellectual version of someone who knows enough of a martial art to think they can defend themselves, but in reality get their arse kicked.
I’ve said it before but every game he would go off about the refs in the postgame, he literally was not getting fouled lol. Or at least any more than anyone on either team. At least guys like Giannis and Shai who get fouled all the time go into contact, Jaylen would avoid all contact and then cry about it every time
Agree with everything except it being low key. It’s very obvious people just ignore it.
I am excited he’s on the Sixers and all, as he’s a good player and gives the team a chance to do some things, but he’s Kyrie 2.0. Full stop, he’s on a very similar arc and I just hope he fucking keeps it together for the next few years.
I’m rolling with GH. Never had a reason to question his integrity in 30+ years of him being in the public eye.
Grant Hill went to Duke and played under Coach K – you know, West Point graduate Coach K. Longtime Team USA head coach, Coach K.
You know damn well that character valuation played a major part. I’d be surprised if Brown ever represents the United States.
Zion Williamson also played under Coach k lol
You know damn well that the modern Duke is not the same program from the 90s.
What’s wrong with JB’s character? He’s always been incredible in the community.
His public alignment with Kanye and kyrie until it was bad pr, then his comments supporting the black Israelites/antisemitism and the antivax movement
I’m not the person you responded to and I don’t have any issues about his character, really, but he’s not my favorite despite being a Cal fan. When he goes on his podcast and complains about other players flopping and foul baiting, refs’ calls, Celtics ownership etc…it’s just a bad look. Not a bad guy, but whiny and petty. He should also get the fck away from whatever flat earth/antivax/Kanye bullsht he’s gotten way too close to. Also, not sure he knows how to play the kind of basketball that would win in international league. On the Celtics, the scheme was built around him and JT. ISO heavy, good 1v1 defense mixed with switchability. Takes advantage of their strengths but minimizes their weaknesses in things like playmaking. But international ball has different rules. We just saw the US, the most talented team by a country mile, almost lose to both Serbia and France. We struggled in that tourney because we had guys trying to play ISO ball, taking tough shots because they couldn’t execute their roles in a motion offense, and it worked poorly. Tatum is one of the best players on Earth and he was legitimately bad during the olympics, a negative player. You need role players to set screens, keep the ball moving, score when the opportunity is there but recognize that ISO ball will lose your team the game. If Booker hadn’t played as a role player we would have lost, Curry and Bron heroics be damned. We don’t need more ISO heavy wings. We need team play to win with those rules. That’s not JB.
Maggette, Singler, Grayson Allen.
Just a couple of Duke alumni where you may want to question their character. I’m sure there are more
ONE HUNDRED PERCENT
Interesting for this to get brought up again after JB’s value across the league was questioned so publicly. This was really that first mainstream look on it ig
Idk I don’t really think Nike gives a fuck if Jaylen Brown is on the Olympic team but I could be wrong
I think you’re probably wrong.
If you owned a company and had a star athlete as your spokesperson, you’d 100% want them appearing in international sporting events.
That doesn’t mean USA basketball has to listen to you.
Maybe if he’s my only athlete, not when he’s 1 of hundreds. They already had LeBron on the team, why would they give a fuck about anyone else?
They had Lebron, Durant and Book who were all already shoo-ins, so I’m geniunely wondering who the people entertaining Brown’s theory think Nike pushed over him
Because JB is their favorite player and they think their favorite player can do no wrong, its others
I don’t think JB is anyone’s favorite player. Outside of JB himself obviously.
You’d be surprised. There’s a lot of highlight watchers on this subreddit.
He’s one of 20ish guys with realistic shot of making the team. Not one of 100s.
Nike 100% cares about advocating for any of their athletes who have a realistic shot of making the US Men’s Olympic Basketball team.
One more Nike guy on the team is one fewer player who is endorsed by a competitor.
They definitely give a fuck.
Edit: For an idea of how much influence these shoe companies have / how deep their connections go, Nico Harrison’s job before Mav’s GM was VP of Ops at Nike
How does Nico being a former Nike executive have anything to dow with whether Nike cares or not about who is on the Olympic team? Sure they have some influence, but that doesn’t really prove they care.
Even if they did, it’s pretty normal to get business/career opportunities based on how you operated and whether or not you carried yourself well. Like, if I was at work constantly criticizing the CEO of my company, why would it be surprising that others get new opportunities above me? Jaylen has a hard time sometimes grasping the way regular people work, and the types of ways we have to navigate in our workplaces in order to properly build the right relationships.
Like he’s definitely incorrect that Nike had anything to do with it, but even if they did, that should be more about him being self critical and learning from his mistakes than him criticizing Nike..
There is a lot of advertising strategy going on at the Olympics. There is a lot of money invested in these deals. They absolutely give a fuck.
They want to win more than anything. Team USA losing hurts their brand way more than Jaylen Brown or whoever not making the team.
You’re absolutely right when it’s between Brown and Derrick White. Like no offense to White, but him being in the team isn’t moving the needle for Nike lol.
100% wrong
Am I wrong or isn’t it kind of an open secret that shoe/brand politics absolutely have a level of influence on this stuff?
If that was the case then why didn’t Nike get Caitlin Clark on the women’s Olympic team?
Honest question, does that mean it applies in every case just because it runs rampant in different levels? You guys would rather believe rumors over what Grant and common sense tells us when you look at how the team was constructed? His skillset was not needed as we had mad other guys that could do what he did and better.
Grant’s like “Bro I’m signed with FILA”
“Nike tried to send me to China too!”
None of us would know either way but conspiracy people believe whatever they want to
Steph, Ant, Hali, and Embiid all made the team. None of them are with Nike.
They started notable Sketchers athlete Joel Embiid. It ain’t that. Nike isn’t risking their entire global brand over Jaylen fucking Brown.
And what’s that for to do with Grant Hill and his integrity? There are anyway Team USA players that aren’t with Nike so why would Brown specifically be left off for not being when Nike?
Not being nearly as good as the other dudes who play your position also have a pretty but influence
This was always the funniest shit ever. They left him off the team because they have better players and he’s a diva. Why would you invite this man to be cancer on your bench? That’s right you wouldn’t and he was going on that bench. It would’ve genuinely been dumb to recruit him because he doesn’t fit the position they were still trying to fill. He had the skills but not the personality for it. His reaction to it proves them correct
He might even be team USA later too if/when they’re gonna give him that starting spot and the importance that he will need to keep it together or maybe he’ll decline the invite because he’s butthurt only time will tell
His reaction to it proves them correct
Exactly! I don’t get why Jaylen doesn’t have the self-awareness to realize that his Nike conspiracy tweets are a good illustration of why they might NOT want him.
The main reason was the basketball fit, but chemistry matters too. If two players are equal, there’s no reason to pick a weirdo who might throw off the vibes.
It also doesn’t make any sense to publicly accuse refs of having a conspiracy agenda against you event if it is true if nothing good can come of it being said out loud but that didn’t stop Jaylen
I got $100 that he never makes the team in his career.
“we failed to medal but because I scored a lot of points I consider this to be USA Basketball’s greatest Olympics!”
After losing the gold medal game where he takes 27 shots: “I think our style of play was really good today I wish we played this way the entire time”
Grant’s right and he should just go petty back at Jaylen. He didn’t have a game that complemented the main stars over White, which seems to be his issue. White was a better ball handler, passer, perimeter defender, help defender, and shooter (at the time). Brown was better at some things but not ones that were as easy to plug in on low usage.
I feel at least someone could have mentioned Hill’s a lifetime fila guy.
Not Brown’s best moment. Instead of taking his “snub” as constructive criticism he only wanted to play the blame game all summer long. It got tiresome real fast
If he was as good as Steph his shoe deal wouldn’t matter, JB isn’t that guy.
he was cool w Kawhi getting the spot instead of him but when you replaced him w derrick white instead of JB ofc hes gonna have mixed feelings about that shit.
But doesn’t that show that they wanted someone who is strong defensively?
You would think a good teammate would be proud instead of indirectly hating on him.
The season before the team was selected, Brown was 80th in win shares. He’s overrated.
I really want to like JB but I can’t take how he keeps getting portrayed as a victim
People acting like it’s no big deal he said the season he scored a bunch of points and lost in the first round was his favourite season over his championship is fucking wild to me lmao
Also go Steelers
he made the right decision
There was no role for Jaylen Brown on the team, not like we needed another wing scorer
Right. There’s no situation where you’d bring in Jaylen as opposed to just bringing in Tatum
Sounds like a shoe company told him to do it
Shoe companies and corporate sponsorships definitely influence both pro and international sports to a massive degree.
And many international sports teams and organizations have proven to be deeply corrupt.
So, in a way, Brown’s claim was a plausible hypothesis.
However, he didn’t substantiate it with real evidence, as far as I’m aware.
He probably should have tried to gather some evidence rather than publicly speculating. I’m all for theorizing privately about stuff like this, but if you’re going to put it out there for everyone to hear, you should really have something more than a hunch.
Smartest guy in the room blaming Nike for not being in the olympics. Hill said he had a good talk with Brown, why didn’t Jaylen Brown just ask him straight up
hm, unless Calvin Hill’s apple fell realllly far from the tree, so to speak, Jaylen would be the second smartest guy at best in any room with Grant.
Pretty sure he means self proclaimed smartest guy in the room
oh, for sure, I’m not trying to correct the guy above me, just noting the irony that Jaylen’s self-proclaimed title wouldn’t even survive a one-on-one meeting with Grant with no one else in the room!
Grant is still taking the high road tbh. I don’t doubt Grant that during the conversation Jaylen didn’t say anything remotely approaching what he aired to the public, so for Grant to still say “something got lost there” instead of “Jaylen’s a despicable liar for slandering me” is pretty generous.
Did they consider the consequences of this chat? Don’t let Jaylen hear any of this, he’ll be cooking up conspiracies for months.
I’ll give him a week or 2 before he’s back on stream to talk about how he used to admire Grant before these comments
At the end of the day, Grant built a winning team.
LeJaylen James Brown revenge tour coming up. You heard it here first!
Also grant is a fila guy… this when I knew Jaylen was full of shit.
Tatum didn’t play because his game was a liability on the Olympics.
Brown would actually have been better.
I don’t care what Grant Hill says: USA basketball didn’t want him on the team because of what JB might say. Tatum is definitely more of a company man. Let’s not pretend that stuff doesn’t matter.
In all these years, is there anyone who can say Grant Hill has no integrity? I’m not aware of it.
Grant Hill has always represented himself and US basketball with class. I suspect the reason why Jaylen Brown wasn’t on team USA is the same reason why Jaylen Brown is now a Sixer.
I concur
“A shoe company”
I mean, it’s not some small little thing, tbf
Celtics fans can simply not comprehend that, perhaps, Jaylen Brown isn’t better than 15 other players in the NBA.
Most Celtics fans understand that perfectly well. It’s Redditors who can’t comprehend it because all they do is watch highlights posted here.
yes, I am
Too much fuss being made of Jaylen brown of all players anyway
does he still drink Sprite?
Jaylen may be a smart guy, but Grant’s pretty sharp himself. Articulated his disagreement with JB without being disparaging. There really was no reason to accuse him of being on the take.
It’s funny how a few articles can have the sheep now having Jaylen Brown as r NBA’s number 1 enemy lol
This is one of those situations where you point out he didn’t deny it. He says it’s an attack on his character. Not that it didn’t occur. Or that might just be me over inferring.
To imply that like a shoe company has no influence on how things happen, now I’m questioning your character. JB isn’t talking about team USA, Grant Hill is. Why? I don’t know. Seems the only guy talking is talking shit and for what? Like really for what? Why are we talking about a 2 year old story? To bring up another narrative of JB being bad. Well now you’re adding fuel to the fire of JB’s story for me.
Ugh yeah. Celtics just won the chip and JB was finals MVP. You picked Holdiay and DWhite over him. Don’t tell me they wanted role players either because they had Booker looking like Trevor Ariza.
He’s unfortunately not the 6th best player on that team
That team was designed to be a victory lap for LeBron, Steph and KD. Whoever didn’t fit, didn’t make it.
without listening… Grant Hill, son of Yalie Calvin, etc, getting ‘number agreement’ incorrect in a simple sentence? Not buying it!
(heh, yeah, listened.. not a good transcription)
to question GRANT HILL, you’d have to be a pretty stupid individual
The vibes in here are interesting for sure. Makes u think…
Just make it tryouts.
I dont believe him JB should’ve been on that team just like how Isiah should’ve
Grant’s aged quite gracefully, appearance wise
Bad translation, ran Grant’s quote through the hood translator lol
I don’t even have to watch the video to know he doesn’t speak like that
Team USA is worse if JB is on the team. It’s that simple.
He can say what he wants but derick white getting chosen over finals mvp jaylen makes no sense
Makes perfect sense. They didn’t need another main guy when White got picked. They needed elite role players. White and Jrue covered that perfectly and Booker owned that role when given the choice too.
Notice how Tatum made the team and barely played meaningful minutes but the 2 elite role players from the Celtics did. It wasn’t about every best American player making the team. It was about making a team that would play like a team.
Best part is? USA still won gold quite easily and people still want to try to complain and question Brown not making the team