Cedric Maxwell reacts to the controversy around Jaylen Brown being left off Team USA basketball.
Jaylen Brown added yet another accolade to his collection Thursday night at the 2024 ESPY Awards. But there was an elephant in the room that had to be addressed at some point.
The Boston Celtics star won the ESPY for "Best Championship Performance" on the heels of earning 2024 NBA Finals MVP after a dominant series against the Dallas Mavericks. Brown's ESPY win came one day after Team USA chose Derrick White instead of Brown to replace the injured Kawhi Leonard on its 12-man squad for the 2024 Paris Olympics, causing Brown to suggest he was snubbed due to his past criticism of Nike, which is Team USA's apparel sponsor.
Brown's strong reaction made plenty of headlines, so it was only a matter of time before he was asked about the snub Thursday night in Los Angeles. Sure enough, former Carolina Panthers and New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton pressed Brown on the issue during a pre-ESPYs red carpet interview -- but the Celtics star wouldn't engage.
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"I ain't really got no comment," Brown told Newton. "I'm with my beautiful date tonight."
Brown arrived at the ESPYs with former Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky guard Kysre Gondrezick as his date, posing for photos with Gondrezick as well as his mother, Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck and Grousbeck's wife, Emilia Fazzalari.
Brown also gave a brief acceptance speech after winning his ESPY, and while he made no direct mention of the Team USA snub, he did joke that his mother is mad at him -- which may or may not be related to her son using social media to call out Nike not once but twice after not getting the Team USA call.
The good news for Brown (and perhaps his mom) is that he didn't fan the flames of the Team USA controversy Thursday night, instead keeping the focus on his latest honor and his date.
Brown now will get to enjoy some time off until training camp in September, while Celtics teammates White, Jayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday gear up for the next Team USA exhibition in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
