NBA Champion Jaylen Brown Unveils His 741 Rover Performance Shoe

The one-and-done ex-Cal player was MVP of the NBA Finals but had time on his hands after being bypassed for the Olympics

Jaylen Brown / David Butler II-Imagn Images

Jaylen Brown, the one-time Cal hoops prodigy, was MVP of the NBA Finals in June but he had the rest of the summer off while four of his Boston Celtics teammates helped the USA win a gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

So, with nothing else to keep him busy, Brown did the obvious thing: He created his own shoe company.

Why?

“Honestly, boredom,” Brown told the Boston Herald, when asked what prompted him to create his recently launched performance brand, 741.

741 Rover / Instagram

Brown understands there are no guarantees his venture will fly. His aspirations extend beyond himself.

“It would be great for it to be successful. But even if it’s not, who cares?” he said. “I’m just kind of tired of seeing the same old things, the deals constructed the same way. So hopefully in the next 20 years, even if this isn’t super successful, that it sparks other athletes, other creators to have the courage to start to build stuff on their own.

“I plan on sharing my story, how much resources it took, the ins and outs of everything that I’ve gone through. Maybe turn it into a documentary or something like that. But honestly, just to be a catalyst to what I want the future to look like — more brands, more creativity, rather than these just major corporations just maintaining. That’s what I want to see.”

Brown’s first shoe is called the 741 Performance Rover. He has worn the shoe during the Celtics’ early training camp sessions and said he intends to give shoes to other NBA and college players after its public release in October.

Brown became a free agent in the sneaker market once his adidas contract expired in 2022. He said he has no problem with athletes who want to attach themselves to established brands such as Nike, with whom he has had public disagreements. Brown always has operated a bit differently.

“If that’s the route you want to go, I salute that,” he said. “My whole ideology is being able to create other options. There’s a lot of guys who feel like they want to do other things and they’re afraid or don’t know how. And as a Players Association rep, I listen to them. I listen to guys’ stories as they get older, and I listen to guys’ stories as they transition through their careers and wish they had other options.

“So a solution for me was to use my platform and create for those and spark others and show them how, exactly, you can do it.”

Brown passed out pairs of shoes to kids at iconic Rucker Park in New York City, and publicly unveiled his creation at the Celtics’ media day last week.