USA Basketball announced Wednesday that Celtics guard Derrick White will replace the injured Kawhi Leonard on the Senior Men’s National Team for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
The decision came as something of a surprise, despite earlier reports during the NBA Finals that White was a candidate to replace the defender in the event of an injury.
The replacement caused a stir on social media after Celtics star Jaylen Brown sent out a cryptic tweet shortly after the announcement.
Brown interest expressed The NBA champion said he will play for Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympics before the start of the 2023-24 season. “Playing for USA Basketball, I think there’s no greater honor. … Being able to participate would be great,” he said.
After an impressive postseason run that took him to the Eastern Conference Finals and to being named Finals MVP, Brown likely feels like he was deprived of a chance at a gold medal.
Hours after his initial tweet, Brown returned to X to attack Nike, the United States’ primary sponsor at the Olympics, for the decision to leave him off the team.
@nike Is this what we’re doing?
—Jaylen Brown (@FCHWPO) July 10, 2024
Brown followed up his tweet the next day with another post after Grant Hill commented on the situation.
I’m not afraid of you or your resources.
—Jaylen Brown (@FCHWPO) July 11, 2024
What’s Brown’s problem with the Swoosh? Jugo Mobile explains below.
Jaylen Brown’s tweet about Nike explained
When the Celtics drafted Brown in 2016, he signed a sneaker deal with Adidas. He wore Adidas shoes for the first five seasons of his career, but his contract expired in 2021.
Brown has not signed any shoe contracts since, playing as a sneaker free agent for the past three seasons.
During that span, Brown primarily wore Nike’s signature Kobe Bryant line, along with a few other brands like New Balance.
But the Celtics star spoke out against Nike during the controversy when Kyrie Irving was banned from the brand for posting things many deemed anti-Semitic on social media in 2022.
Since when does Nike care about ethics? https://t.co/f8t2eY994v
—Jaylen Brown (@FCHWPO) November 10, 2022
That was perhaps Brown’s first strike against the Swoosh.
Since then, Brown has continued to wear Kobes sneakers more frequently, but last year he made a notable cosmetic change to his sneakers.
Throughout Boston’s championship season, Brown wore a variety of Kobe models without the Nike logo on his sneakers. You can find an example of the pair he wore on Christmas Day below.
Jaylen Brown shows off his Nike Kobe 6s “Reverse Grinch” without the swoosh, which he wore today for the NBA Christmas game ?? photo.twitter.com/3uIjxv2b5p
— KicksFinder (@KicksFinder) December 26, 2023
Would Brown’s negative reaction to Nike in 2022 and decision to wear sneakers without the Swoosh last season be enough for Team USA’s primary apparel brand to avoid selecting him for the 2024 Paris Olympics? It’s definitely possible.
And if we’re to make assumptions based on Brown’s tweet, he certainly believes it.
