Cedric Maxwell reacts to the controversy around Jaylen Brown being left off Team USA basketball.
Jaylen Brown showed up at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas on Monday to show his support for his Boston Celtics teammates in NBA Summer League action against the Los Angeles Lakers.
But most eyes were on Lakers rookie Bronny James, the son of Lakers star LeBron James -- and Brown found himself caught up in the conversation.
A video posted by NBC Sports Boston on Monday night shows Brown sitting courtside with WNBA player Kysre Gondrezick (his date for the ESPY Awards last week) and Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese, and lip-readers speculated that Brown told Gondrezick something to the effect of, "I don't think Bronny is a pro."
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We can't hear their conversation, so there's no way of knowing for certain whether Brown was shading Bronny or complimenting him -- or talking about something else entirely.
But Brown apparently heard the chatter that he was dissing Bronny, because he shared a post supporting the Lakers rookie and his father early Tuesday morning on Twitter/X.
"It’s a flex to have your son alongside you in the nba it reflects greatness and longevity!" Brown wrote. "Bronny has all the tools around him to be successful I look forward to watching his growth."
Bronny has endured plenty of criticism that he's only in the NBA because of his last name, and that criticism only heightened when his father's team selected the 19-year-old with the No. 55 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. Bronny didn't do much to help his cause Monday night, either, scoring just two points on 1-for-5 shooting (0-for-3 from 3-point range) in the Lakers' 88-74 loss to the Celtics.
Brown knows better than to publicly call out the son of an NBA superstar, however, so regardless of how he feels privately about Bronny, he made sure to give the Lakers rookie a public vote of confidence Tuesday morning.
