The Summer of Jaylen Brown – You Got Boston w/ Noa Dalzell

The Summer of Jaylen Brown – You Got Boston w/ Noa Dalzell

We are Brown with the flush. Tatum the drive. Tatum the finish. It is 18. The mission commanded is mission accomplished. What’s up everyone? This is Noah Delzel and I’m here with another episode of You Got Boston. this time a very Jaylen Brown focused episode uh which I actually recorded a couple days after the in the field like journalistic experience. So I’ll talk a little bit about why I did that um and also a little bit about uh just what it was like to attend Jaylen’s camp. So this is going to be a fun episode. I’ve been looking forward to recording this one for quite some time. Um and it’s about I think who might end up being the most important player on this roster next year. And at this point in the summer, I feel pretty confident that Jaylen Brown is going to be on the Celtics uh on opening night and he’s going to be a big part of this team. So, just to get started, I wanted to talk about how I ended up covering Jaylen uh for about a couple days right before I went to Las Vegas summer league. Every year since 2021, he took a break. He took a an off year last year, but since 2021, Jaylen Brown has hosted a camp called the bridge camp. Um, and it’s a camp at MIT for students from Boston, not that are like academically gifted, who have already shown like we crush standardized testing, but kids that are really well regarded for being like good people in the community, kind, caring, leaders, like having good character, all these things. Um, and so Jaylen and his mom, Michelle, who is the president of the Juice Foundation, which is Jaylen’s Foundation, their family’s foundation, I should say. Uh, Jaylen and Michelle spent, you know, a lot of time talking to Boys and Girls Clubs from around Boston, uh, talking to some other partner organizations that they have to identify these kids. And the kids come to MIT on a Monday morning. Actually, in this case, the festivities started on a Sunday at Canoby Lake Park, an amusement park in New Hampshire, about an hour north of Boston. Um, and it’s a week-long education immersive program uh that Jaylen and his mother host as in addition to like so many celebrities, so many guests, scientists, NASA astronauts, um like you name it, they were probably there. Like you had Jordan Childs, the Olympic gymnast, Cheryl Swoops, one of the greatest women’s basketball players of all time. Uh Jamal Hill, who is one of the most renowned sports journalists of our generation on one panel, right? Uh Killer Mike was there talking about things. They took the kids to Google um on an excursion. They went to the Museum of Science. Um, and basically what my pitch was to Jaylen and his team is that I really wanted to attend this camp because for one, I find this stuff more f more fun to cover than just like following the trade rumors and and I like being like on the behind the scenes and the community and the human side of things. So, I attended this camp and I was basically just a camper and I stayed out of everybody’s way. I didn’t take photos. I wasn’t like interviewing the kids in the middle of sessions. There was a time where I got my reporting in and I got my interviews in. Um, but basically I just made sure to be a wallflower and just follow the, you know, follow the footsteps of everybody else. And there were sessions about food insecurity, about climate change, about data visualization, about robotics. Some of the topics I’m really well verssed in. Some of you might know before I was a sports reporter, I was a climate lobbyist and I worked in the food space. So those sessions I was like, I could jump in and like add my two cents. And there were some things like coding that I have no background in that I was sitting there like the students. Um, one of the things that was really notable about this camp is that it’s not just like we’re going to throw all this information at you and you have to absorb it. The idea is is that all of these kids are kids that are like really well-intentioned kids who might have just not had the resources that and you know other kids nearby in a different zip code may have had depending on the school that they attend. And this is an opportunity for them to just like kind of close that gap and also be exposed to a lot of topics that they might have just not learned in school. So if you learned, you know, if you knew about the fact that robotics was a field that you could enter, maybe you as a sophomore in high school would have done things a little bit differently. So that’s Jaylen’s philosophy. And so him, his mom, um, and the other organizers of the Juice Foundation, I met some pretty incredible people, incredible thinkers, uh, during my week at MIT. They effectively uh have created a curriculum that’s meant to expose students to as much as possible uh to give them the opportunity of course the camp is free and to give them the opportunity to learn everything there is to learn uh and to walk away saying you know what this is the thing that really motivates me this is the thing that I feel really passionate about um and so that’s the principle right and they brought in college admission counselors from MIT from Harvard uh from schools around the area who were doing Q&As’s with the students around like how do you apply to colleges? How do you put together an application that’s particularly strong? Um, and you could see day one the kids were kind of shy and then as the week went along, it’s like any other thing, right? These kids became friends. Uh, one of the MC’s of the camp, his name was Raquin Brown. He was I don’t think any relation to Jaylen by the way with the last name, but he was like, you know, cultivating like hype sessions and singing songs and creating dance parties. So, the camp is like, while it’s super educational, it’s also meant to be really fun. Um, but it’s not a basketball camp. Basketball really doesn’t even come up. And while all the kids know that Jaylen is a Celtics player and that he’s famous and then he’s a celebrity, this is not one of those moments where I was walking around thinking like there’s a famous Celtics player here because he wasn’t carrying himself like one. And I’ve been to a lot of community events this summer where Jaylen Brown was the center of attention where kids are like kind of gawking at him and trying to get a photo and an autograph. And there were some moments throughout the week where players were trying to, you know, kids were trying to get an autograph from Jaylen or maybe a selfie. But it was really few and far between because for the most part they were all there for educational reasons and to spend time this, you know, this summer becoming smarter and more exposed to different thought, you know, processes and schools of thought and things like that. Uh so what was fascinating to me is that Jaylen Brown was at the camp from morning to night every day this that whole week. Um, I had to miss one of the days because there was a Celtics practice and so I was at the Hourback Center and I was thinking to myself, you know, maybe Jayen just went to day one and Brad Stevens who spoke to us that day was like, “Hey, uh, yeah, Jayen was here early this morning working on his rehab because obviously he had a miniscus surgery earlier this summer.” And so, and I was thinking like, “Oh, maybe Jayen didn’t go to camp today.” And I opened like my Instagram story and I’m looking through the camps postings and like, “No, he’s already there. They’re at the Museum of Science. are doing experiments, all of that. Uh, so he spent all day every day at this camp. He would get his workout in in his rehab prior to the camp opening at like 8:30 in the morning. Um, and then he would come and spend the whole day there. Um, and so the reason I tell the story is not because it’s like, oh, you know, he does the greatest things for the community ever and everybody needs to bow down to him. Um, I do think it’s really special and it’s really awesome that there’s a Celtics player that is so invested in the Boston community. Um, and I think that it’s been somewhat of a slow burn. Like I didn’t cover the team when Jaylen was drafted. I’ve only covered the team for the last two years, but I was in Boston. I followed the Celtics, so I was pretty I’m pretty well aware of, you know, a lot of the things that went down prior to my joining the beat the year they won the championship. Um, but you could just tell that this is a community that he really really values, that he really, really believes in. He said, “I believe in the city of Boston.” In addition to running this camp every summer, uh Jaylen and his mom are looking to expand the bridge program into a year-round initiative. So, next year, this is going to be a year-round initiative that students can enroll in and take classes and go to lectures and workshops all year long um at these different community centers. And it’s still something that’s being completely ironed out, but there was an event that I attended. Uh there was a fundraiser to turn this into a year-round event, a comedy show uh that Joe Missoula and some other Celtics coaches were at. And so it was really cool. I have to say like it was as a as a reporter, this was one of my favorite reporting experiences that I’ve ever done. um because I got to see a star player that is very heavily scrutinized, that is very revered, that has a lot on his played from an athletic standpoint. He was obviously incredibly famous and every time every time I cover one of these events, like you see all the you know all the hype, all the commotion around it. Um and here he was just a regular guy and he was sitting in the classes and he was asking questions and he was super engaged and a couple times I was sitting in a workshop and I was like, you know, I was listening to a workshop about something that I don’t know a lot about like robotics for example. Um, and I was getting like kind of distracted and I would pick up my phone and like start scrolling like Twitter, scrolling Instagram, and then I’d look over and I’d be like, “Okay, Jaylen’s like locked in on this. So, if he could be locked in on this, I should probably be locked in on this, too.” And obviously, it’s his camp. Um, but he was not just there for show because he they did not invite me to be there. Like, I think sometimes with this community stuff, like people get the idea that like they’re calling the cameras and like they want to get PR. Um, and I feel like as somebody who’s covered this, I have I have like a I have a, you know, an imperative to say that and to put that out there that I I try to get into these camps and I try to go to these events because I think if I’m going to cover the Celtics, I want to cover the people, not just the players, um, and to understand what makes them tick, to understand what matters to them, to understand how they interact with the community. Uh, part of why I’m really passionate about covering the Boston Celtics and not just any NBA team, um, is because I was raised here. I love the city for, you know, obviously it’s not a perfect city. It has lots of flaws. Um, but like Jaylen, I’m really passionate about seeing the city become a better place. And so, it’s really cool to see one of the franchise players of the team that I grew up supporting and the team that I now cover be so invested in bettering this community. And I’ve written a lot about it this summer on Junth. He was in Dorchester at a Boys and Girls Club giving away 741 Performance sneakers. Uh he’s been doing popups like almost every weekend all summer just spending time with fans like hanging out. Um and besides for that he also launched an incubator called Boston Exchange uh in partnership with Drew and Lauren Holidayiday’s Foundation the JLH fund. Um and that is they’re basically giving seed funding to companies and office space and investment and resources and 10 different companies were selected in year one. Um, and the idea there was, let’s pick companies that rep from underrepresented communities that, you know, we really believe in their mission. We believe in what they’re doing, and let’s support them and help them go from like a baby company to something a lot bigger and more sustainable. Um, and Drew, Lauren, and Jaylen have been super super committed to this mission. My understanding is that despite the fact that obviously Drew’s been traded and that Drew and Lauren are now going to be living in Portland for the time being, this collaboration is going to continue and Boston Exchange is going to continue. Um, and so in addition to the education stuff with the kids, in addition to the public appearances and all that and giving away shoes, he does have this like on the business side, uh, this investment in these companies. Uh, that’s both a financial and a material investment and it’s also a time investment. And I talked to some of the entrepreneurs uh, that have worked, you know, with Jaylen and Drew and Lauren. They were hosting dinners during the season at Jaylen’s apartment. Um, and entrepreneurs were coming to Bos, you know, coming to his house. And they were talking about like this is the roadblocks that we’re having. And it’s not like Drew and Jaylen and Lauren are like this, you know, like geniuses that know the answer to every single question that any business owner might have, but they probably have a connection that can help them. And that’s really what this is about. It’s about sharing their resources, their networks, their connections. Uh, like for example, Drew and Lauren have a lot of connections with the Museum of Fine Arts. So when I went on Junth, I went to the Museum of Fine Arts and several of the companies that they’ve invested in had set up shop there um as a result of some of the kind of connections that were made there. So I’ve written a little bit about this. It’s something that I’m going to continue to write about because I think the offthec court stuff is really really interesting and it’s what makes these players people. And when you’re rooting for players, inevitably you’re rooting for the person as well. Um, and you know, you you go back and you look at like a Bill Russell uh franchise icon and maybe in the moment you scrutinize Bill Russell just for the player that he was. And there wasn’t a whole lot of scrutinize because we all know Bill Russell was an incredible player. Um, but when as time goes on you realize how much bigger his impact was both on the city and and the world than just the basketball player than he was. Um, and so it’s, you know, I know a lot of times people people use him as a comparison. And I don’t mean to draw him as a comparison of like I’m saying that Jaylen Brown is Bill Russell. Obviously they’re two very different people living in very different times. Um but I do think that as I when I go to these events, when I cover Jaylen, you know, you know, at these community centers spending like nine ten hours talking to people, like this is not a rushed PR thing where he’s signing some scribbling some autographs and walking out and making sure that he gets his head shot and calling a bunch of reporters. They don’t send press releases telling us to come to these things. Usually I try to find a way to hear about it. I try to attend a lot of times they’re like, you know, he doesn’t want to do media, he doesn’t want to do photos, uh he doesn’t want to do autographs, like he he doesn’t, you know, he wants to just be able to just hang out with the fans. And so, like, it’s kind of reluctantly that I they allow me into these spaces. And I just want to put that out there because sometimes I think things get misconstrued online or like the most cynical take is like, oh, the cameras are running again. Um, and that’s really I can tell you firsthand because I’m the one that’s going, it’s not what this is. But it is really cool to see. Um, and as I look into next year, I think the Celtics fans are really lucky. first to have had a championship team a year ago. Uh to still have a lot of great players to root for and to support. Um and then also to have a franchise player right now that is so so committed to the city of Boston. Um and he told me a week after the season ended, I’m going to spend a lot of time here in the community. I really I really want to touch and feel this community this summer. And I thought to myself, you know, we’ll see what happens. We’ll see if he really does it. We’ll see, you know, I’m sure he’s going to travel and all that. And I’m sure that he still will. It’s still just mid July. Um but one week after having knee surgery, he was on crutches at the Boys and Girl girls club in Dorchester. Like this is real to him. Uh he w he doesn’t just have bridge run by, you know, somebody that he hires and just say, you know, I did the education camp and like you can get I can get the PR for it. He was there for 40 hours. He was talking to each and every kid. He was so so engaged. Like makes every single person feel important. Every single kid that went up to him, he was giving advice to and like that’s just the way that it’s been. I didn’t know that side of Jaylen Brown heading into the off seasonason. I’ve covered him for two seasons. Covered him when he won finals MVP and was on top of the world. I covered him through injury and and a lot of the struggles of this past season. But it really has deepened my understanding of him as a person and as a player. Um and so you can check out the full story on Celtics blog about Bridge. Uh a project that I’m super passionate about honestly just like getting to be there. I was like I want to be back here as a as a camper next year. I learned so much. I met some great people. I met some great counselors that are, you know, giving their time to being mentors to other students in the Boston area. Um, and as somebody who grew up in this area, like, you know, I just love seeing it. I love seeing access and opportunity uh be a point of emphasis from a professional athlete in the city. And that’s like that’s just not every day that you see that. And I know people have talked about uh Reggie Lewis and certain players that have like really made that a priority. Uh, but it’s really not every day. and the fact that he’s been here this off seasonason, I think that it’s made a world of difference for a lot of like real people in Boston, both kids, adults, members of the community that just like are uplifted by that. Um, so Bridge was incredible. I also talked to Jordan, uh, Jaylen’s mom, uh, and she talked about how when he was a toddler, like he was like dying to go to school. Um, and how he was always like if there was a day off or a holiday, he’d be super bummed. Like he always loved to learn. Um, and so that’s something that I think you can kind of see and I could see it when I was like watching him watch the lectures and I was like I I also love school growing up. Like I was always like really gung-ho, good student, all that, but I was like he has I think he might have better focus than me because I was I was losing I was like losing my ability to sit through lectures at a certain point and uh that might just be a reflection on me honestly. I don’t have to have as much of an attention span in my current job where press conferences are like five minutes long. Um but he said you know even in a city like Boston some of the most prominent figures in sports are more influential than any of the political leaders are. Uh so exposing students to building life skills and at the same time building leadership skills the combination of those two can make some really good human beings. Um and that’s kind of his philosophy is of like his presence matters. It’s not just his money or his resources which he puts into you know his foundation into Boston Exchange and all of that but his presence actually matters. That’s how he feels. Um, and I think it’s true. And you know, in an ideal world, you wouldn’t look at athletes as role models because they’re supposed to be athletes and you never know what they do off the floor. And if they do bad things off the floor, you don’t want your kids wanting to emulate those behaviors. Um, but the world that we do live in is a world where kids look up to athletes. That’s just the reality of of of the matter. So Jaylen knows that and I think that he’s kind of carried that, you know, that burden honestly uh into his everyday life. And he said he wants to make kids think that it’s cool to learn. He said, “We we live in an unserious generation. Everything is a lot of trolls. It’s almost cool not to think at all. And I’m not trying to make it overly dense, but I want people to think.” Um, so he it was really cool. I I wish I could like play more video clips and things, but it was like off the record in the sense that I wasn’t supposed to be videoing uh taking, you know, taking, you know, photos, tweets, all of that. Um, but if you read the full story, I think you’ll get a sense of what it was like to be at Bridge. I’m sure if you’ve followed us on this for a long time, you’ve heard of Juice Foundation, you’ve heard of the Bridge Camp. Um, but you might not know what it actually is. So, this gives a better sense of that. I’m going to be doing this for a lot of the players. I know certain players have done things off the floor that like maybe you hear about, but you don’t necessarily know exactly what it looks like. So, Derek White has done some stuff with Special Olympics. Uh, Jason Tatum has done a lot of work in St. Louis. Uh, so I’m hoping to eventually go out there sometime and and kind of look into all of that. So, we’ll see. Um, but to me, like that’s, you know, that is an important part of covering a team. And I’m sure I’m going to lose some listeners as far as like not everybody wants to hear about this stuff and you want to hear about the basketball and that’s totally fine. Uh, but I figured it was fair to do an episode on the offc court of it all. Uh, considering where we’re at in mid July and no breaking news for a couple days here now. Uh, so it’s an opportunity to get a little bit more three-dimensional with everything. Um, and there was one kid, I want to give a shout out to one kid that I spoke with, Jesse Lee Given, uh, who actually went to my high school, Brooklyn High, um, who fell in love with Bridge in 2021. It was a virtual program at the time. He loved that it was like interdisciplinary. He could lean into music and STEM and all these different things. Uh, and now he just got a full ride to BEu and he’s one of the counselors that was supporting the program. So, they are kids that have kind of like grown up through this program. Um, and it’s really cool to watch. It’s cool to see, you know, they were they were a student in high school that was selected and now they’re giving back their time and Jaylen has these really close relationships with a lot of the kids in the city. Um, and so it’s bigger than basketball sometimes. This is one of those moments where it really feels like that. Um, and it was cool to see Joe supporting as well. Joe Misoula, his wife Kame, uh, members of the coaching staff who were all there kind of supporting the comedy show that took place on one of the nights of bridge um, earlier this month that I attended just as a fly on the wall. Again, uh, that was a fun event. lots of good jokes and uh lots of joking around. A lot of big Celtics fans that had bought tickets just to get a chance to support Browns Foundation and also to see Joe Misoula from afar laughing at a comedy show. Uh I think that was a fun experience for all. And uh here’s a little bit of what Jillen had to say uh introducing the the whole experience. Is is Joe Mazula here? Is he here? Round of applause. Prize Pix is the best place to turn your sports knowledge into cash. With millions of members, Prize Pix has made daily fantasy sports accessible to all. You just pick more or less on at least two players for a shot to win up to 2,000 times your cash. Run your game all season long on Prize Pix. Prize Pix is the best way to get action on sports in more than 30 states, including California, Texas, and Georgia. Prize Pix is the best place to win cash while watching sports. Join millions of users and sign up today. 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A lot of the quotes made the rounds. Uh, I heard it discussed on Boston Sports Radio, on NBC, like the kind of thing that is just kind of natural when a star player talks in the middle of an offseason that hasn’t talked in a while. Um, but I always get nervous about this stuff because to me, like when you get to talk to a player one-on-one and they give you their time and their authenticity and their honesty and like Jaylen was pretty open in a lot of things that he said, like you want to write it in the way that you’re like, “This is how it came out. This is how it felt when I was sitting there.” Um, there was a great Joel Embiid feature. Uh, much better than anything I’ve written. I would love to spend like eight months writing a story like that. It was incredible. But that feature, if you haven’t read it, I’d recommend you check it out. It was on ESPN. Um, even that I heard like radio, it got it got super like scrutinized. Like quotes were pulled out of context and everything. Um, but one of the things that Jaylen said that I think I’m going to I’m going to read some of the quotes that he had just because I do think it it gives a little bit of context on like kind of what you may have heard discussed. Maybe you haven’t heard this, but it was kind of a little bit of a discussion topic in the media landscape for a couple of days there last week. And I let it kind of blow over before I wanted to do this episode. Um he talked about how there have been like a lot of narratives around him, a lot of discussions around him and how this summer it’s been so so nice to be able to connect two fans that love him and love, you know, support him and support the team and everything. Um I’m going to read some of the quotes. He said, “I was expecting to go back to back and win a championship, but that didn’t happen. So we had a little extra time. I had surgery, which I wasn’t expecting either. That kind of became a reality towards the end of the season. So rehab and stuff kept me here. It was just fitting. It just lined up that way. So, I’ve enjoyed my time here. It’s been great. I’ve had so much fun every single week seeing even some of the same people over and over and meeting new people. It’s been awesome. So, if you’re one of those fans that’s been lining up at his events, like he really has appreciated it. I think he knows a lot of these fans by name. We were joking around after. He knows the usernames on Twitter. Um, he really does pay pay attention to all that. Um, he said it’s very very mutual. The narrative is that I’m giving so much, but it’s so much they’re giving to me as well. Uh, I appreciate all the support, all the well-wishes, all the love that I’ve received. Um, so I think this ultimately has been a little bit of a tough off season for Jaylen. Like he obviously team did not have as much success as he was hoping for. They wanted to go back to back. Um, he has knee surgery, the first like leg surgery that he’s had. I think he had a wrist surgery a couple years back, but that kind of stuff can freak you out because you’re wondering like how what’s what’s going to happen with your meniscus, all that moving forward. Um, and this is what he said. He said it’s not always like that, especially through the media, through X, Y, and Z. I don’t entertain a lot of stuff. I don’t give my energy to a lot of stuff. I don’t even fight certain narratives. I don’t really say a lot. I just say the least possible because I don’t want somebody to take my words and go into a different direction, which is very, very popular through the media, especially in Boston. I disagree with a lot of things. I’ve had to change roles, styles. I’ve had to change things to do things that other players of my talent just haven’t had to do, and I’ve been okay with them because I’ve always been a team guy, and I feel like sometimes that gets taken for granted. But I’m extremely grateful that we won a championship. I’m extremely grateful that we’ve been able to have success and that’s what it’s about. It’s not about you. It’s not about me. You know what I mean? I want the next generation to know that as well. It’s okay to play a role in the team. It’s okay to do whatever, but don’t let that define you and let people define you as that. Um, and then he said, “I feel like I’m very talented. I’m one of the talented people in this league, on this planet. I feel like looking forward to show the world more my ideas and things that I see. Uh, sometimes it can be misconstrued or perceived in different ways and directions, and I’m okay with that, too. So, I think the reality is is that Jaylen Brown is really confident in his skill set. Um, he is really confident in his ability to lead this team next year to be a great player. Um, and he’s also seen a lot of the critiques, a lot of the discussions around him. Uh, a lot of the discourse and the media, the narratives, the words getting twisted out, you know, out of control, all that. Um, and so our conversation was all in the context of like this summer has been so lovely honestly because this summer has given him a chance to really connect with real people with members of the community uh with fans that are not looking coming in trying to create controversy or you know pin this Tatum and Brown against one another which I think is something that we’ve seen a lot in public discourse for a long time. Like this was for him like this summer has actually been the opposite of that. Um, and he did touch on like how it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. There have been challenges and all these things. Um, but ultimately, um, I do think that you see with him that he’s really comfortable where he’s at right now and that he loves the city and that he loves the community work that he’s doing and all of that. So, I’ve seen some stuff like some of these quotes were taken out of context or just taken like pulled out and discussed like, you know, he doesn’t like it here. He wants a trade. Uh, I didn’t get that sense whatsoever from talking to him and I spent quite some time at the camp and quite some time sitting down with Jaylen. So, I just wanted to come out and and kind of record my podcast discussing all of this. Um, and I’ve said that and I think my story, you know, kind of shared that as well. But it really is, you know, anytime you sit down with one of these players, anything can be pulled out and made into kind of like a media graphic. And that’s just the nature of the media landscape. Um, but in this case, I just want to say like the sense that I got from our conversation is that he is in a good place and he’s looking forward to next year. He’s looking forward to showing the world kind of what he’s capable of. I know that he was sitting on Kyrie’s Twitch stream uh when he was here for a couple days for All-Star weekend and he said, you know, I’ve haven’t shown the world kind of what I can really do because he’s been on such a stacked roster. Um I don’t view that as slander towards the team, as slander towards Jason Tatum, as slander towards Joe Mazoula. Like that is what the mindset you should have in my opinion if you’re a star player. Like if you are an NBA player, you should believe in yourself and your abilities. And why why can’t you say that? You know, why can’t Peyton Pritchard say, you know, I want to be an all-star. He hasn’t said that, but like why not, right? Like he doesn’t put a limit on his abilities. That’s what’s gotten him to the point that he’s at right now. So, my interpretation of these quotes, he feels like he’s talented. He wants to show the world more. It’s not that he’s going to come up next year and he’s going to shot Chuck and he’s going to, you know, go crazy and shoot 30% from the field and dribble off his foot and do the things that I see sometimes on social media, people poking fun of him at at his lowest, like what the worst plays are and all that. So, I think you’re going to see Jaylen Brown play very measured and very under control. Um, and play kind of like he did in game five against the Knicks when Tatum first went down where he had a near triple double and was really kind of playing carefully and uh actually didn’t score that many points, but was kind of facilitating and running the show. Um, and hopefully for his sake and for all of our sake, you know, watching him that he’ll make a full recovery from this knee injury and that he’ll be back to kind of his pre- knee injury self and kind of get some of that explosion back that I do think he lacked for the second half of the season. Uh, so he loved this camp, he loved the summer, he has really loved being in the community. If you’re somebody that’s gotten the chance to meet Jaylen, uh, it was so so evident from our conversation that he has really really cherished his time in Boston. uh has really cherished each person that’s shown up. It was raining like every single Saturday for a while. So, I think he really enjoyed uh the fact that people pushed through the rain and still came. He pushed through the rain and still came. Everybody soaking wet. There were days where it was 95 degrees, people still came out. So, that’s kind of like that’s that’s real fandom. And I think sometimes online, like even I get bogged down sometimes by the online discourse and the things that people say to me. So, I can only imagine what an NBA player feels. Um, but the biggest takeaway that I had is that he feels really really confident um in his own abilities and he feels really confident um that he’s going to make the most of any opportunity that he’s given and that he is really really grateful for how things have played out over the last few weeks and just the time that he’s been able to spend. Um so he said, you know, I don’t really fight for myself. You don’t really see me go out and disagree or say what I actually feel and see and think, especially from a basketball perspective. Whatever the team wants, whatever people need me to do, I’ve done. Um, people hear that stuff and like I think it gets people annoyed. Uh, but truly like this is what I always think. If I was an NBA player and I was scrolling social media and I was seeing some of the stuff that people are saying, it would be so hard for me not to quote tweet it and just say my my piece or to share my thoughts or to give my initial reaction. Zack uh Cam Thomas of the Brooklyn Nets just did this to Zack Low of the Ringer where Zack Low said, you know, everybody thinks he’s a shot shooker. something along those lines and and Cam Thomas just quote tweeted it and responded and was like really upset about it. And it’s not something you see very often in the NBA because you’re taught if you’re famous, if you have a following, like don’t respond to the trolls or don’t respond to the media. Zach Low is definitely not a troll. He’s a media member. But don’t don’t feed into the Discords. Like you have to stay above all that. Um but it’s really hard. I’ve had things that I’ve had to ignore. And again, I don’t even want to compare myself to the spotlight that an NBA athlete is under because it’s it’s nothing. It’s a spec compared to what they feel. Um, and people kind of talk and run their mouth and say things without any consequence, without thinking at all that there’s any chance uh that the player could ever respond, right? And I think that it’s a good thing for everybody to keep in mind that when you say things like players see it, and you don’t have to feel sorry for these guys. They make a lot of money. They have a great life. Um, but I think that at the end of the day, there’s been a lot of discourse around both Jaylen Brown and a lot of other players in the Celtics that I’ve covered over the past two years that probably most people wouldn’t have um if you were in the room with that athlete and maybe you’d actually want to take a photo of them or take a selfie with them and uh sometimes just getting out in the community that love uh that Jaylen felt that has been uh really kind of a a needle mover in a lot of ways. So, there’s two stories that I wrote, you can find them both on Celtics blog. One is really centered around bridge and the education program. the other more about kind of Jen’s relationship with Boston and the fans and how much it’s grown. Um, and I will just say he said, you know, the championship meant so much. Like it was so so meaningful. Um, so when you hear him talk about like some of the role things, the sacrifice, a lot of people sort of speculate like what exactly is he talking about, he doesn’t like getting into specifics on that stuff. So I don’t know if he’s referring to like rotations or the fact that he doesn’t, this is just my own ideas, like he hasn’t really taken many gamewinner attempts. Those have kind of defaulted to be Tatum shots. Um, you know, a lot of times used to be the guy that plays the full first quarters. That was something that changed in the middle of this year. I don’t really know why, but there’s little things that I’m like, maybe he’s referring to that. He would obviously never make like spectacle about these things because he’s a professional. Um, but I don’t I did not get the sense at all that this is like a disgruntled player that’s coming out to be like, I’m, you know, I’m really unhappy and I want to trade. And I I saw some people twist those words or conclude that. Um, and everybody can, each their own. Everybody can look at things and decide what they want to say about them or what they want to think. Um, but it is hard when you get those conversations and it’s like you want to make sure that they’re related accurately. So, part of my thinking in recording this is both I wanted to talk about bridge and I wanted to talk about the community work. Um, but I also wanted to talk about some of the quotes, some of the things that he said on the record and the conversation that we had at the end of the week about how uh he really really sees the support and the love from those that have been kind of advocating for him. He said, “It’s part of the reason why you can never give up. It’s disrespect the people that really really believe in you. if people show up in the rain and stand for hours because they believe in me that much. So I would never give up. Uh so yeah, that is that. Uh hopefully you enjoyed a little bit of appeal behind the curtain onto Jaylen Brown, some of the community work that he’s been doing. I’ve written a ton about it. So if you want to read more, uh you can search Jaylen Brown Celtics blog and you can find some of the stories that I’ve written in the summer. Um a few of them are still on the homepage, so you can check those out. I’ll put some of those in the description as well. Um as always, thank you for watching. Please subscribe to You Got Boston podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, uh whatever else, wherever else you watch podcasts. I mean, I guess those are the places. Uh subscribe to CNS Media. We have postgame pressors. We have podcasts all summer. Anytime there’s any breaking news, we’re going to go live and react to it. So, you can check all that out. Uh so, again, thank you so much for watching. Hopefully, you enjoyed the Jail Brown interviews. Hopefully, you enjoyed the show. Um enjoy the rest of your day.

Celtics reporter Noa Dalzell takes listeners inside Jaylen Brown’s Bridge Program — a week‑long, hands‑on camp that brings community‑minded Boston students to MIT for STEM, entrepreneurship, and leadership workshops. Then, Noa discussed a lengthy conversation she had with about his growing connection with the city of Boston — and much more.

⏰️EPISODE TIMELINE⏰️
0:00 Jaylen’s Bridge Program
3:20 Noa’s experience at the camp
6:15 Jaylen Brown’s time at Bridge
20:14 PrizePicks!
21:14 Noa’s conversation with JB

Noa’s Conversation with Jaylen on His Celtics Journey: https://www.celticsblog.com/2025/7/13/24466044/jaylen-brown-boston-celtics-offseason-community-jayson-tatum

Noa’s Feature on the Bridge Program: https://www.celticsblog.com/2025/7/11/24463069/jaylen-brown-boston-celtics-bridge-program-7uice-foundation-mechalle-activism

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