Jaylen Brown is quickly becoming a face of the NBA for his on-court performances, averaging over 20 points per game throughout the 2019-20 season and helping the Celtics to an outstanding season.
However, it's what he has continually done off the floor that unarguably makes him one of the faces of the NBA in the league's ongoing efforts to promote social justice and battle back against racism, oppression, brutality and other glaring issues in America.
Most recently, he shared his thoughts on several teams' decisions to boycott their playoff games in the wake of the Jacob Blake police shooting that occurred in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday evening. The Milwaukee Bucks were the first of those teams, whose unprecedented decision to protest the lack of official action in our nation despite an "overwhelming plea of change," as worded beautifully by forward Sterling Brown, sparked several other teams to do the same.
According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, Brown was laudatory of the Bucks' independent decision to boycott their playoff game on Wednesday night, saying that the Bucks didn't need a reason as to why they made that choice and that he fully supports what they'd done.
In addition, Brown reportedly challenged those who boycotted games and wanted to leave the bubble to do more than just leave and spend time with their families.
"Jaylen Brown also asked them, 'Okay, if you guys leave here, are you just gonna leave and go chill and hang out with your families and lose that loneliness, or are you gonna be in the trenches, are you gonna be in the streets?' " reporter Marc J. Spears said on ESPN on Wednesday night. "And so, to me, if you're leaving just to leave and be mad, that's a waste of time. If you're going to do what Jaylen Brown said, be in the streets, be active!"
Brown's challenge here reminds me a lot of what Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn said earlier in 2020, when social justice protests had started to surge around the country. Check out my thoughts on Lynn's brilliantly-stated ideas here.
Brown had made an impassioned statement regarding the shooting of Jacob Blake on Tuesday, August 25, the day before teams took official action.
"Are we not human beings? Is Jacob Blake not a human being?" Brown asked, among several other key points. "I don't care if he did something 10 years ago, 10 days ago, or 10 minutes ago. If he served his sentence and he was released back into society... he still deserves to be treated like a human and not deserve to be, you know, shot in the back seven times with intent to kill. His kids will never unsee that, his family will never unsee that, and, frankly, I will never unsee it.
"People post my jersey all the time, No. 7. And every time I look at my jersey now, what I see is... a black man being shot seven times. But all America sees is his background, or his background report. It's easier to see that than to see the truth."
According to Woj, the NBA players have a meeting set for Thursday morning at 11:00 AM, where they'll "continue the discussion on how they'll proceed with the playoffs." As a vice president on the board of the NBPA, and as one of the brightest, most well-informed, and most impassioned players in the league, Brown will likely have more important takes on the matter.
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