Jaylen Brown believes USA Basketball sponsor Nike kept him off the team because he’s an adidas athlete.
Team USA got its first exhibition game under its belt on Wednesday night, beating a formidable Canada squad comfortably in Las Vegas. However, the discussion on Thursday wasn’t about the terrifying defense the Americans showed or how fun the Stephen Curry-LeBron James combo looks on the court together for the first time in a USA Basketball uniform. Instead, it was about the roster shakeup that took place when Kawhi Leonard pulled out of the Olympics with continued knee soreness and was replaced by Celtics guard Derrick White.
White joins teammates Jrue Holiday and Jayson Tatum on the roster, but conspicuously absent is Finals MVP Jaylen Brown, who has been vocal about his desire to be on the team and is not happy by his exclusion from the replacement spot. Grant Hill has looked to diffuse the situation by noting their task is to build the best team, and sometimes that means taking a great role player over a great star player to fill a need. In this case, that’s someone comfortable in shorter bursts playing off the ball as a shooter and doing the little things on both ends. White certainly fits the bill, but Brown would argue he’s capable of all of that as well.
The Celtics star wing has focused his frustration on sneaker giant Nike, who sponsors Team USA, believing they were the driving force in keeping him — an adidas athlete — off the roster in favor of a Nike player in White.
