Cal Sports Report

Jaylen Brown on the Cover of March Sports Illustrated Edition

Former Cal star Brown is known as a deep thinker and the SI one-on-one interview addresses that aspect of the 2024 NBA Finals MVP

Jake Curtis

Jaylen Brown
Jaylen Brown / Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images
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Former Cal basketball star Jaylen Brown is known for two things at the moment. He was the NBA Eastern Finals MVP and the NBA Finals MVP while helping the Celtics win the NBA title in 2024. And he has informed opinions he's willing to share about a lot of issues off the court.

That's why it makes sense that Sports Illustrated put Brown on the cover of its "One-on-One Issue" in March 2025.

The cover teases the Brown interview with this phrase: "Inside the Mind of an NBA Deep Thinker," and the video at the bottom of this story teases that Brown opens up about his Nike conflict and Team USA snub.

Brown spent just one season at Cal, averaging 14.6 points for the Bears' 2015-16 squad that finsihed with a 23-11 record. His athleticism and potential made him the No. 3 overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft, and he was recently named to the All-Star Game for the fourth time, while averaging 22.9 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.8 assists this season.

His interview with Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix begins with these three paragraphs:

Fifteen minutes into an interview, as Jaylen Brown is deep into an explanation on the ways that sports can be a mechanism for control, Joe Mazzulla busts through a door inside the Celtics’ practice facility. “The most interesting man in the world,” barks Boston’s head coach. “Just look at this m---erf---er.” Mazzulla gestures at Brown’s outfit, which includes an oversized down jacket and jet-black sneakers, both from Brown’s 741 collection, the clothing line the 28-year-old launched last fall after having concluded that the eight-figure offers dangled by legacy brands weren’t for him.  

In itself, that is intriguing. In the NBA, generating off-the-court income can be formulaic. Endorsement deals are the simplest: Sign with a major company, shoot a few commercials, blast out some posts on social media and zip over to China every offseason to hawk your merch. Brown did a deal like this in 2016, signing with Adidas before his rookie season, a partnership that ended in 2021. After that, he listened to pitches, rejecting offers before ultimately deciding to forge his own path. 

Ask Brown why he went this route, or why he’s made any of the more interesting choices he’s made on his way to becoming one of the NBA's top wing players, and he will seem perplexed by the question. “Why not?” Brown says. Why not take a scholarship from Cal, a college a long way from his hometown of Marietta, Ga., both geographically and culturally? Why not accept speaking offers from MIT, Harvard and Morehouse? 

Other articles of interest:

Cooper Flagg and No. 3 Duke Too Much for Cal at Cameron Indoor

Andrew Vaughn and White Sox Seek Turnaround at 2024 Fisaco

Cal Baseball Preview: Bears Try Again in Loaded ACC

Cal Ice Hockey: Bears Pay to Play and Are 25-0 Heading to Playoffs

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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