Jaylen Brown has not accepted the Team USA rejection lying down. The fact that he was not called up, despite coming off a championship-winning season and securing MVP titles in the Conference Finals and the Finals, did not sit well either with him or a significant portion of the community, regardless being from Boston or not. This pre-Olympics fiasco around USA Basketball has now escalated into a needless feud between the player and Team USA’s Managing Director Grant Hill.

It all ignited after Grant Hill touched base on JB spreading unproven claims about his rejection online. During a segment of the Dan Patrick show, the Managing Director emphasized once again that Team USA’s selections were made solely on merit. About Jaylen Brown’s online remarks, he stated, “I think this idea that there’s a conspiracy theory — I always love a good conspiracy theory, but it was really truly a basketball decision and these are tough decisions.”

“But having gone through this with the FIBA competition, you want to find the right balance and the right pieces on the court that we needed,” he concluded. Jaylen Brown highlighted his displeasure after his Celtics teammate, Derrick White, was taken in as Kawhi Leonard’s replacement on the Olympic roster. Taking to his X account, he put out a cryptic post, “@nike this what we doing?” which indicated that the sports apparel giant played an unexpected role in him not getting accepted.

Now, after Hill’s reply, Jaylen Brown did not choose to accept the “conspiracy theory” tag by any means. Looking to provide a defense, he stated, “Grant hill calling me a conspiracy theorist is disappointing I’ve been a VP since I was 21 years old I have a great understanding.”

By indicating his role as the Vice President of the NBA Players Association, Jaylen Brown indicated that he was aware of the influence that Nike allegedly had on the sport and international tournaments. Given his previous comments about the billion-dollar brand and his prior association with Adidas, the 2024 NBA champion seems to have not spoken up without considering his remarks well.

Jaylen Brown’s NBPA VP stint: When did it begin? How has it panned out?

Unlike what Jaylen Brown indicated in the tweet, the player was elected as NBPA VP at 22, not 21, as per the EssentiallySports Fact Check team. However, this still didn’t change the fact that he was the youngest player ever to receive the role after being voted on by his peers. He was 4 years younger than the earlier youngest representative in the NBPA’s Executive Committee.

“It was pretty dope,” Jaylen Brown said back in 2019 after securing the position. “I wasn’t expecting to win, to be honest.”

In his first term as Vice President (each term is for 3 years). Jaylen Brown made use of his platform to share opinions on various issues. With problems arising during the COVID-19 pandemic and the influence of Black Lives Matter in 2020, the VP maintained a stern stance throughout the league’s ‘return-to-play’ process.

In May 2020, he drove for 15 hours to his native city of Atlanta to join the protest in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. He was alongside Malcolm Brogdon and Justin Anderson, showing his support for racial equality.

In 2022, Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving was suspended by the franchise after promoting antisemitic content online. Jaylen Brown, along with the rest of the union members, stated their disagreement with the list of terms that the player needed to fulfill for his suspension to be revoked. The list included 6 benchmarks, that varied from receiving sensitivity training to making a $500,000 donation to anti-hate causes.

In his statement, Jaylen Brown highlighted, “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.” He stated his belief that the union is concerned about the suspension setting an unwanted precedent, despite no guidelines about social media use being present in the CBA.

Ironically, it was JB’s defense of Kyrie Irving online that would later form the foundation of his feud with Nike. Notably, Kai was his former teammate, with Brown continuing to maintain that the actions by the Nets were “inappropriate.”

In his role as VP, he would later state his desire to appeal the suspension. It was this move that made him the second Celtics player, after Isaiah Thomas, to receive the ‘End of Season NBA Cares Community Assist’ Award.

After being re-elected as Vice President in 2022, Jaylen Brown would bring about a change within the workings of the NBA as well. In April 2023, he and other members of the NBPA reached a consensus on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). The same allowed the Boston Celtics to bump up the amount of money that they could offer to players who out-performed the rookie scale extension.

Jaylen Brown, months later, then went on to sign a 5-year, $304 million supermax extension. The Celt has been influential off the court as much as he has been on it. While his recent troubles have been a matter of concern for fans, the player’s competitive drive won’t allow him to be away from the international circuit for long.