Source: Boston Globe / Getty
L ess than a month removed from the Boston Celtics winning the 2024 NBA Finals, there already might be a rift in TD Garden’s locker room.
LeBron James , Steph Curry and the rest of the country’s top basketball players are gearing up for Team USA’s dueling it out for gold in this year’s Paris Olympics.
It’s an honor that not many are given, and Jaylen Brown seems slighted for not making the team. It started when the oft-injured Kawhi Leonard dropped out Wednesday due to injury, likely after the Clippers brass in attendance at the early workout, who preferred him to focus on the 2024-25 season instead.
With the roster spot opening up, Brown –an NBA Finals MVP with a massive $304 million contract– assumed he’d be a shoo-in, but he wasn’t.
Instead, his teammate Derrick White and Brown took to social media to let everyone know he wasn’t enthused, tweeting out three monocle emojis with a confused look on their faces.
A few hours later, he was still upset and brought Nike into the situation, tweeting, “@nike this what we doing?” insinuating that Nike has any influence over roster decision and wouldn’t choose him because he used to be an adidas athlete.
Team USA men’s managing director Grant Hill explained that White was chosen because he complements the team more.
“You have to build a team. And one of the hardest things is leaving people off the roster that I’m a fan of, that I look forward to watching throughout the season, throughout the playoffs,” Hill told reporters Wednesday. “Guys who’ve been Finals MVP, guys who have been a part of the program, guys who’ve won gold medals. Guys who I respect, admire and enjoy watching. But the responsibility that I have is to put together a team and a team that complements each other.”
He went on to say that Nike wields no power over roster spots.
“For a good portion of my career, I wore Fila. That was supposed to be a joke,” he said. “We’re proud of our partners, obviously. … This is about putting together a team.”
There’s no telling if the snub will spill over into the regular season and affect team chemistry.
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