NBA MVP Jaylen Brown blames Nike for his absence from U.S. Dream Team

NBA MVP Jaylen Brown blames Nike for his absence from U.S. Dream Team


The U.S. team, the top favorite to win the Olympic Games, is not all that glitters is gold. If at the sporting level nobody doubts that they will climb to the top of the podium in Paris, despite the fact that in their preparation friendlies they are leaving some doubts (they suffered yesterday against Australia 92-98), there is a lot of noise and even controversy around the call-up of their 12 stars.

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After Kawhi Leonard left the training camp because he was not recovered from his bad knee, USA Basketball called Derrick White, Celtics forward, to replace him. A questionable decision to say the least, given the availability and willingness of teammate Jaylen Brown, MVP of the NBA Finals also with the Celtics, to go.

Direct accusation to the sports brand

The latter did not take it well that the U.S. Federation passed over him, and pointed to the Nike company for this alleged veto. The sports brand has a powerful agreement with USA Basketball to dress all its teams, from the senior to the training categories, and Brown, who wore Adidas until three years ago, insinuated that this was the reason for his exclusion from the Dream Team: “Nike Is this what we are doing?” he wrote in his networks in a message to the multinational.

The brand’s disagreements with Jaylen go back a long way, specifically to 2022, when Nike broke relations with Kyrie Irving, accusing him of spreading anti-Semitic and hateful messages. The owner of the multinational, Phil Knight, justified on social networks his decision to break with the now Mavericks point guard: “Kyrie crossed the line. It’s as simple as that. He made statements that we can’t accept and that’s why we ended the relationship. I agreed with that decision.”

Jaylen Brown immediately responded to that tweet where the Nike owner explained why they had broken relations with Irving with a blunt and hurtful question against the brand: “Since when does Nike care about ethics,” he wrote. The confrontation was total and frontal, and perhaps that is why the Celtics star now blames the brand for his exclusion from the U.S. Dream Team.

Former U.S. national team manager Grant Hill, when asked about the controversy, threw out his own pet peeve: “You’ve got 12 holes and you’ve got to build a team. And one of the hardest things is to leave people out of the squad that I’m a fan of and love to watch during the season. Like him. Guys who have been Finals MVP’s that I respect, admire and enjoy. But my responsibility is to put together a team where they complement each other.”

He called Derrick White to avoid “confusion”

Jaylen Brown, feeling it was an injustice that he wasn’t in the draft, must not have realized that he was criticizing teammate Derrick White‘s call-up to replace Kawhi, and now admits he had to talk to him to apologize. “I called Derrick right away,” Brown told reporters Monday during the Celtics‘ summer league game. “Just to make sure there’s no confusion and show him my love for him and all that. He knew and he understood. You don’t always have to make everything public. D-White and I are fine,” he confessed.





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