Jaylen Brown was not happy when his name was not in the replacement fold after Kawhi Leonard opted out of Team USA early July. Hill decided to call up Derrick White – Boston Celtics teammate of Brown – to replace Kawhi and Team USA left a multiple times All-Star and NBA champions out of its roster.
Grant Hill recently touched on the Brown controversy during an interview with journalist Rachel Nichols. Basketball Hall of Famer and Team USA men’s hoops managing director claimed that the door for Team USA is open for Brown going into the next four years.
“I’m confident he and I will sit down at some point and talk about it and get to some level of understanding,” Hill said, via Bleacher Report. “Look, he’ll be a candidate if he wants in ’28…”
Jaylen Brown criticized Hill openly and pointed out at NIKE for the decision to leave him out of the roster. The Boston Celtics superstar was critical of the NIKE brand during the past years stemming from Kyrie Irving when the monolith of sports business parted ways with the superstar guard due to controversy around a social media post.
Jaylen Brown pointed out at NIKE, which is an official partner of Team USA, as the sole reason he was left out of the team.
“One thing I’ve learned. You can’t take anything personal in this role. And so, I haven’t personalized anything. My goal, my objective is to win. As soon as hopefully that happens, we pivot and start looking ahead to the future,” Hill noted.
Team USA cruises to Olympic medal despite Jaylen Brown’s absence
Considering that Jaylen Brown had a great season with the Celtics which led to an NBA championship and Finals MVP, Hill leaving out the All-Star is certainly a poor decision.
However, Team USA is a star-studded squad with some claiming that it is the best talent ever assembled for a national team.
In any case, Team USA has cruised through opponents so far and they are in a bid for another Olympic Gold playing Serbia in the semi-final on Thursday night.
