TIME writer goes behind the scenes on Jaylen interview originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
It was an eventful offseason for Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown, to say the least.
The 2024 NBA Finals MVP was left off Team USA’s Paris Olympics roster, but he deserves a gold medal for his off-the-court efforts. He got himself into even better shape for the new season, released a new song, and launched a new performance brand while traveling the world and continuing his philanthropic work.
In only a few months, Brown went from supposedly lacking marketability to gracing the cover of TIME magazine. The writer who profiled Brown for the cover story, Sean Gregory, joined Chris Forsberg on the latest Celtics Talk Podcast to share his biggest takeaways from the interview.
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“You never know with folks who do the philanthropy how real it is and how sincere (they are). People went out of their way, which gave me comfort, to be like, ‘It’s not performative.’ Like, Jaylen Brown really cares about this stuff,” Gregory said.
“Here’s an exchange that kind of (stood out). I can’t pronounce the word, panopticism or something? It was really telling that he started to give a response — I went back and listened, and it was fine, but he was so hell-bent on nailing it that he had a friend who’s kind of, I get the sense, a guy who helps manage him and think stuff through, who was sort of listening in. … He kind of butted in a little bit and said, ‘Hey, can we stop and talk this through?’
“I included it because I think it’s just telling about how he’s kind of — things are calculated. He cares about getting this stuff right. He could’ve just babbled his way through and it would’ve been fine, but he discussed what he wanted to say with his friend.
“… I don’t think he was going out of his way to be like, ‘I need to sound smart here.’ I think he went out of his way to be like, ‘I want to be right and I want to be accurate.’ And I appreciated that. I just thought it was telling.”
Gregory also shared what he learned about Brown from other individuals he interviewed. One of them was a lecturer in the African American studies program at Brown’s alma mater, UC Berkeley.
“I spoke to a friend of his, Ameer Loggins. He made an interesting point about how this summer, which in many cases — he had a hurdle this summer with the Olympics stuff. But it didn’t stop him from enjoying this summer,” he said. “He did what he wanted to do. He’s doing the underwater aerobics, he’s going to Mecca, I think his girlfriend and him took a second trip to the Middle East.
“So he kind of leaned into, ‘I’m the MVP, I’ve got a lot of disposable income, and I’m going to experience the world.’ And he didn’t let the disappointment of the Olympic thing dispel or take away from what he accomplished, which I think if you’re a Celtics fan, you like hearing that. He’s still working on his game, he’s still hungry, and he enjoyed the fruits of his labor instead of letting it get him down.”
Also in the episode:
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Forsberg shares his experience traveling to Abu Dhabi with the team last week and breaks down what he saw from the Celtics in their first two preseason games.
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Sean Gregory details the process of interviewing Jaylen Brown for TIME and what he learned from the Celtics star.
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What did Gregory learn about the relationship between Brown and Jayson Tatum?
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Gregory discusses what surprised him most about his interview with Brown.
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Any common thread Gregory found between all of the top-level athletes across different sports?