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Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown Talks Free Agency, Activism and Kanye West

Sopan Deb

12 - 15 minutes

Jaylen Brown on Basketball, Activism and Being Black in Boston

The star Celtics guard talks about his career year in the N.B.A., educational
inequality and his association with Kanye West.

Published March 17, 2023

HOUSTON — Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown was around 7 years old when he asked
his grandmother Dianne Varnado for a new Xbox. Varnado, a longtime public-school
teacher and social worker, made him write a paper about it.

“‘If you want something, you’ve got to be able to explain why,’” Brown, 26,
recalled her telling him.

His wants are different now: to win an N.B.A. championship; for players to share in
more of the league’s profits; to see an end to anti-Black racism in policing and
school funding.

Brown has used his celebrity platform to explain why he is passionate about issues
like income inequality. Derek Van Rheenen, one of Brown’s former professors at the
University of California, Berkeley, described him as “intellectually curious” and
“politically invested, socially conscious.”

But Brown’s growing profile has meant more pressure to explain himself: for working
with the rapper Kanye West, who goes by Ye, after he made antisemitic comments, and
for a misstep while supporting Kyrie Irving, who faced backlash after promoting an
antisemitic film when he played for the Nets.

While basketball has been Brown’s primary focus, it has never been the only one.
Brown said his family is full of educators, who laid the foundation for his
activist focus on education inequality. Varnado, who he said recently died
“peacefully,” also helped him develop his voice by teaching him to argue for what
matters to him. (He got the Xbox.)

Image
Jaylen Brown leaps toward the basketball hoop for a layup while wearing a black
face mask.
Brown is averaging career highs in points per game (26.8), rebounds per game (6.9)
and shooting percentage (49 percent). This is his seventh season.Credit...Mitchell
Leff/Getty Images
Jaylen Brown leaps toward the basketball hoop for a layup while wearing a black
face mask.

Brown sat down with The New York Times at a Four Seasons hotel in Houston on Sunday
to talk about his career and his life, including the controversies. He had just
come off a flight from Atlanta, where the Celtics had won the night before. Brown
has firmly established himself as one of the elite guards in the N.B.A. on one of
the top teams, averaging career highs in scoring and rebounding in his best season
yet.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How important is making an All-N.B.A. team to you?

You want me to answer honestly?

I don’t want you to lie to me.

I think it would be deserving. We’ve been pretty dominant all season long.

Whether I’m in an All-Star Game, All-N.B.A., or whoever comes up with those

You and Jayson Tatum have pretty much played your entire careers together at
this point. How would you describe your relationship today?

I would say the same as it’s always been. You know, two guys who work really
hard, who care about winning. We come out and we are extremely competitive. People
still probably don’t think it’ll work out.

But, for the most part, it’s been rarefied air.

Image
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown fist-bump each other while standing on a basketball
court wearing All-Star jerseys.
The Celtics drafted Jayson Tatum, left, one year after they drafted Brown.
Together, they led Boston to the N.B.A. finals last season but lost to Golden
State.Credit...Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown fist-bump each other while standing on a basketball
court wearing All-Star jerseys.

Celtics center Al Horford recalled that the speed of the N.B.A. game was “really,
really fast” for Brown during his rookie season in 2016-17. But now, “he just
completely understands the things that he needs to do on the floor,” Horford said.

Brown made his second All-Star team this season, and his career-best 26.8 points a
game places him among the top guards in scoring. He could be a free agent after
next season, but he said he isn’t thinking about that yet. “I’ve been able to make
a lot of connections in the city, meet a lot of amazing families who have dedicated
their lives to issues about change,” he said.

Brown, who is Black, has spoken publicly about racism in Boston, where about half
the population is white and about a quarter is Black. In 2015, a jolting study from
the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston estimated that the Black households in the
Boston area had a median wealth of close to zero, while the figure for white
households was $247,500. “The wealth disparity in Boston is ridiculous,” Brown
said.

What has your experience been like as a Black professional athlete in Boston?

There’s multiple experiences: as an athlete, as a basketball player, as a

I think that my experience there has been not as fluid as I thought it would
be.

What do you mean by that?

Even being an athlete, you would think that you’ve got a certain amount of
influence to be able to have experiences, to be able to have some things that doors
open a little bit easier. But even with me being who I am, trying to start a
business, trying to buy a house, trying to do certain things, you run into some
adversity.

Other athletes have spoken about the negative way that fans have treated Black
athletes while playing in Boston. Have you experienced any of that?

I have, but I pretty much block it all out. It’s not the whole Celtic fan base,
but it is a part of the fan base that exists within the Celtic nation that is
problematic. If you have a bad game, they tie it to your personal character.

I definitely think there’s a group or an amount within the Celtic nation that
is extremely toxic and does not want to see athletes use their platform, or they
just want you to play basketball and entertain and go home. And that’s a problem to
me.

Erik Moore, the founder of the venture capital firm Base Ventures, mentored Brown
in college after Brown interned at his company. He said Brown was always focused on
social justice. “It’s not new or shocking or weird,” Moore said. “It’s just who he
is.”

In April 2020, Brown wrote an op-ed for The Guardian decrying societal inequalities
exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. The next month, he donated $1,000 to the
political action committee Grassroots Law, which, according to its website, fights
“to end oppressive policing, incarceration, and injustice.” Weeks later, Brown
drove 15 hours to Atlanta from Boston to protest the police killing of George
Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis.

Image
Jaylen Brown speaks into a microphone while wearing a gray T-shirt with black
lettering that reads, “Now is the time to make justice a reality for all.”
Brown spoke about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before a game against the New
Orleans Pelicans in January 2022.Credit...Adam Glanzman/Getty Images
Jaylen Brown speaks into a microphone while wearing a gray T-shirt with black
lettering that reads, “Now is the time to make justice a reality for all.”

Do you think things are better for Black Americans when it comes to dealing
with police than they were three years ago when you went down to protest?

I have not seen it, to be honest. I think the issue is more systemic. I think
what I learned about policing is that it’s not like the N.B.A., where everybody has
these kind of rules that they kind of follow. How a police station in Memphis runs
their police station is different from how they might run it in the New York Police
Department. I don’t want to say it’s like the Wild West, but it’s different, you
know?

I read an interview where you said “Educational inequality is probably the most
potent form of racism on our planet.” What do you mean by that?
 There’s different forms of bigotry or racism or inequalities. Directly
confrontational still happens to this day, where people come up to you and just
tell you their distaste for the way you walk, the way you talk, your skin color.
And those are all extremely emotionally detrimental.

There’s other forms of hegemonic racism that are subliminal, such as the
inequalities in the education system: the lack of resources and opportunities
through local elections and people voting on how much money or resources should go
in this area versus this area.

What about those kids who are extremely talented? What about those kids who are
gifted who have contributions to make to society? But they’re stumped because of
lack of opportunity.

I’ll forever fight for those kids because I’m one of them.

Ye and Irving

Brown first received widespread attention for his political views in 2018 when he
told The Guardian that President Donald J. Trump was “unfit to lead” and that he
had “made it a lot more acceptable for racists to speak their minds.” He also said
sports were a “mechanism of control.” It was an unusual degree of outspokenness for
a young, unestablished player.

So Brown raised eyebrows in May 2022 when he became one of the first athletes to
join Donda Sports, the new marketing agency of a well-known Trump supporter: Ye.

“I think people still are loath to believe that Kanye really is a Trump fan,” said
Moore, Brown’s mentor, adding, “So it might be easy to compartmentalize those
things for Kanye specifically and say he’s a marketing phenom and he’s an amazing
artist and he’s got that side of the world first and be OK with that.”

Image
Jaylen Brown shakes hands with Kanye West.
Brown was one of the first athletes to sign with the marketing agency of the rapper
Kanye West, who goes by Ye, left. Credit...Jed Jacobsohn/NBAE via Getty Images
Jaylen Brown shakes hands with Kanye West.

As Ye spiraled with a series of antisemitic comments and social media posts in the
fall, Brown initially defended his association with Donda Sports before apologizing
in October and cutting ties.

Months after your interview in The Guardian in 2018, Kanye goes to the White
House and very publicly aligns himself with President Trump. When you decided to
sign with Donda, how did you reconcile those two things?

You know, just because you think differently from somebody, it doesn’t mean you
can’t work with them. I don’t think the same as [the Celtics owners] Steve Pagliuca
or Wyc Grousbeck on a lot of different issues. But that doesn’t mean we can’t come
together and win a championship.

What are the things you aligned with Donda on specifically?

One, education. Donda was his mother’s name and she was an educator, similar to
my mom. And she was an activist and they had a different approach to how they
looked at agency, how they looked at representation through marketing and media.

Everybody kind of follows the same script, especially in sports. They hire an
agent. And that approach never really absolutely worked for me.
 Look, I’m a part of the union. I see the statistics every day. Over 40 to 60
percent of our athletes, 10 years after they retire, go broke or lose majority of
their wealth. Our athletes silently suffer. Nobody’s helping them manage their
money, and [the agents] just get a new client once the oil has run dry. Nobody
looks at that model and that approach as an issue.

Trying to be an example for the next generation of athletes.

You described Kanye as a role model in the past. How do you feel about him now?

Go to the next question. I’m not going to answer that.

You got in a little bit of hot water in November for sharing a video of [an
antisemitic sect of] the Black Hebrew Israelites outside of Barclays Center in
support of Kyrie Irving. You said that you thought it was a fraternity. Did that
incident make you rethink how you want to use your platform?

At that time, being the vice president of the players association, Kyrie Irving
was being exiled, so I thought it was important to use my platform to to show him
some love when he was being welcomed back. And people took it with their own
perspective and ran with it. That’s out of my control. I’ve always used my platform
to talk about certain things, and I will continue to. But the more you make people
uncomfortable, the more criticism you’re going to get. And that’s just life.

Image
Jaylen Brown and Kyrie Irving face each other on a basketball court as Brown
dribbles the basketball.
Brown, right, was one of several players who expressed support for Kyrie Irving,
left, as he faced strong public backlash for promoting an antisemitic movie. Irving
denied that he was antisemitic.Credit...Michelle Farsi for The New York Times
Jaylen Brown and Kyrie Irving face each other on a basketball court as Brown
dribbles the basketball.

Brown is one of seven vice presidents in the N.B.A. players’ union. Chrysa Chin, a
union executive, recalled meeting Brown before his rookie year. She said he told
her he wanted to be president of the union one day. “I thought it was very
unusual,” Chin said.

The N.B.A. and the union are negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement,
with the players seeking a “true partnership” that lets them tap into more of the
league’s revenue streams that would not exist without their labor, Brown said.

“We’d like to see our ethics, morals and values being upheld internationally and
globally,” Brown said, “and we would like to have a say-so with the partners and
the people that are being involved with the league, because our face, our value,
our work ethic, our work, our labor is attached to this league as well.”