Who Is Jaylen Brown? | The US Sun

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Jaylen Brown was crowned the NBA Finals MVP after he helped lead the Boston Celtics to a championship.

The Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks 106-88 Monday night to seal the series, which they claimed four games to one.

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The brilliant Brown averaged 20.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and five assists over those championship-deciding matchups, including a 30-point performance in game three.

Brown starred alongside “partner in crime” Jayson Tatum, who compiled his own compelling stats averaging 22.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game throughout the Finals. 

In the end, voters decided Brown deserved the Finals MVP gong – but the Celtics star humbly said he didn’t deserve sole credit for the Bill Russell Trophy. 

Brown said: “It was a full team effort and I share this with my brothers and my partner in crime Jayson Tatum.

“He was with me the whole way, we share this s–t together.”

Jayson Tatum was the first player to lead a champion team in points scored, rebounds and assists and not receive the award, raising eyebrows among some fans.

But each member of the team finally gets to hold the Larry O’Brien trophy aloft, with the Celtics winning their first championship since 2008.

They’d been in the reckoning in recent seasons, winning the eastern conference in 2022, but ultimately fell short with the Golden State Warriors claiming the prize.

The 2024 triumph is Boston’s 18th, making it the most successful franchise in NBA history.

They have edged ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers (17 championships). 

The Celtics and Lakers are well ahead of any other team – Warriors are third with seven titles, followed by the 1990s-conquering Chicago Bulls (six). 

But who is Jaylen Brown, and where’d the Celtics star come from?

Who is Jaylen Brown?

Jaylen Brown, 26, was selected as an NBA first-round draft pick for the Boston Celtics in 2016.

He grew up in Marietta, Georgia with his brother and his mom, Mechalle, who raised them as a single parent.

Mechalle received her PhD from the University of Michigan, giving Brown a sense of determination to succeed.

His father, Marselles, was a successful heavyweight boxer with a 31-18-1 career record and 25 knockouts.

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Brown’s success in basketball started in high school when he became a multiple-time All-Cob County Player of the Year and upon entering college, he was the no. 4 recruit in the country, according to 247 Sports.

Since joining the Celtics in 2016, Brown won the NBA All-Rookie Team Award in 2017 and the NBA Community Assist Award in 2020.

Was Jaylen Brown considered too smart to play in the NBA?

He was finishing his freshman year at the University of California Berkeley when he joined the team and didn’t return to finish school.

While in school, he furthered his intellect by learning foreign languages and taking a graduate-level course when he was in his first year.

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The narrative that Brown was “too smart” for the NBA circulated for years before he addressed the comments in a 2018 interview with CBS Sports.

The first comments came in 2016 when Andscape reported an unnamed NBA executive said Brown was “too smart for the league.”

The NBA assistant general manager told the outlet that Brown’s level of intelligence could intimidate his coaches, general managers, and teammates.

The assistant general manager said Brown “doesn’t fit the mold of a so-called basketball player,” adding, “He is an extremely intelligent kid.

“… He is a person who is inquisitive about everything. Because he is so smart, it might be intimidating to some teams.

“He wants to know why you are doing something instead of just doing it. I don’t think it’s bad, but it’s a form of questioning authority.

“It’s not malicious. He just wants to know what is going on. Old-school coaches don’t want guys that question stuff.”

Speaking with CBS Sports two years later, Brown questioned the 2016 comments, asking, “What is the ‘so-called mold’ of a basketball player?

“I challenge whoever has the ideology of this ‘so-called’ basketball player, I challenge them to come out and say what that is.”

Brown said he wants to change the conversation and move on from the stigma that athletes cannot also have a high level of intelligence.

“It’s time to move to a new generation where, not only can you have a job and do your job well, but also have interests outside that and have that be OK, there’s no backlash from that.

“Especially if you want to be a musician or a politician or something or a venture capitalist like Steph Curry, anything. I think that’s dope. I think it’s time to move in that direction. The time is now.

“… That is a narrative that’s been set for a long time now, and it’s up to us — the fans, the media, the players — to change the narrative and make that OK.”

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What are Jaylen Brown’s stats?

Brown has risen to the challenge of the NBA starting out with an average of scoring 6.6 PPG but by the 2021-2022 season, his average increased to 23.6 PPG.

Likewise, his 3-point field goals made have increased from .6 in his first season to 2.5 in the 2021-2022 season.

Former NBA All-Star Dominique Wilkins told NBC Sports that Brown’s overall playing average has shown what he is made of.

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“Now people are starting to see that this guy is a complete basketball player,” Wilkins said.

“His game has grown now, he’s more mature now. You’ve seen the growth already and it’s going to do nothing but get better and better.”