Cal Basketball: Jaylen Brown Finds His Voice From Within the NBA Bubble

Former Cal player is productive for the Celtics and a force for social change

Oakland’s Damian Lillard won MVP honors of the NBA’s bubble, having averaged 37.6 points and 9.6 assists through the final eight regular-season games of the year, with performances of 42, 45, 51 and 61 points.

But the MVV of the bubble — the Most Valuable Voice — belongs to Jaylen Brown.

The former Cal standout, completing his fourth NBA season but still just 23 years old, will help lead the Boston Celtics against the Philadelphia 76ers when the playoffs begin Monday. Game 1 tips off at 3:30 p.m. PT and will be shown in ESPN.

Brown enjoyed his most productive NBA season, averaging 20.3 points, including 19.6 points and 6.6 rebounds in the lead-up to the playoffs after the NBA resumed play late last month in Orlando, Florida.

But the 6-foot-6 wing is equally impactful off the court. While the NBA plays on a floor stenciled with the Black Lives Matter logo, Brown offers regular reminders of why that’s important in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer.

It was Brown who drove from Boston to his hometown of Atlanta back in late May to lead a peaceful protest march.

And it’s Brown who has repeatedly kept the conversation going since then. While a few NBA players wondered whether returning to play after the long break for COVID-19 would take the spotlight off the BLM movement, Brown has shown how to share his message with a media audience that also is in a bubble.

Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn, USA Today

After contributing 19 points and 12 rebounds to a victory over the Orlando Magic last Sunday, Brown for at least the third time this summer used the post-game platform to speak on issues beyond the game.

Gary Washburn, a 1991 Cal grad and a veteran NBA writer with the Boston Globe, chronicled Brown’s latest post-game detour in a column with the headline, “Get used to hearing Jaylen Brown use his voice to amplify the issues, not his play on the court.”

*** Check out my Zoom interview above with Washburn, who talks about Brown's development as a player and a leader with the Celtics.

Brown, who played just one season at Cal before becoming the No. 3 pick of the 2016 NBA draft, apparently has moved forward carrying a bit of Berkeley activist soul.

“I also want to take a look at the term ‘police brutality,’” he said to reporters last weekend, changing the post-game topic. “And maybe offer a different perspective. Flashback to May 25, 2020. You watch George Floyd, a human being, be violently killed; the four men who nonchalantly terrorized Floyd belong to a state-sponsored law enforcement, law enforcement that historically in America that has targeted and profiled Black and minority civilian populations throughout.

“Now, I’m aware some Americans have the birthright and privilege to see police officers as protectors and maybe even peacekeepers or even embrace heroism. Unfortunately, I’m not from that side of America. I’m from the other side where people are in fear or terror of the police.”

Brown is keeping alive an important conversation America needs to have because George Floyd isn’t the only example of a Black person victimized recently by racism in this country. He isn’t even the latest example.

Know their names: Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown. There are too many to list. All killed during encounters with the police. Jaylen Brown wants to make sure we remember them.

Brown’s concerns are not strictly with BLM issues. He is sensitive to how the coronavirus pandemic has strained mental health for so many people, including his fellow NBA players. Even in the bubble, he said, players wrestle with anxiety and depression.

“I also want to bring attention to mental health and awareness,” Brown said. “Being here in this bubble, people might not speak on it, but it’s a challenge to a lot of guys. It’s like you’re at work all the time. A lot of guys want to be able to leave and forget about basketball for a little. It’s impossible here in the bubble.”

Brown understands his status as an NBA star affords him something of a protective bubble even beyond Orlando that he never would have experienced before his basketball fame and wealth. He also embraces the responsibility that comes with having a platform to speak out.

“Without being drafted by the Celtics, without being in the place that I’m in now, I would still be on that other side of America,” Brown said told reporters that day. “I want to take a look at ‘police brutality’ and maybe offer another term, as ‘domestic terrorism’ because that’s what it was in the eyes of George Floyd and that’s what it was in the eyes of Trayvon Martin and that’s what it is now with a lot of people of color and minorities communities.

"Thank you guys for listening.”

Hopefully, everyone is listening.

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Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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