Latest / Black Box Theory Podcast / The Disrespect of Jaylen Brown Makes No Sense
Transcript
- Malcolm: He said, I had two NBA sources, two people in the league, one an executive, one a scout, say that Jalen Brown has it's a disease. He suddenly thinks he's the smartest guy in every room he's in. You make a lot of money, suddenly you're absolutely sure you don't want to listen to your bosses, you don't want to listen to consultants, you don't want to listen to teammates. And like a lot of people don't want to make it into this. But I I I I I I find it hard to believe that this is anything outside of the fact that and it it's only ironically enough, it's the city of Boston, of course, of all cities to for this to kind of be rooted in. But it's like we see, mind you, let's not act like like like not to like like Mind you, like like this is before he even got drafted, right? Jalen Brown had like concerns about getting drafted because he was so smart. They thought like he didn't he wasn't gonna love basketball enough because he was so smart. Let's also remember, right? He graduated top of his class. He told he went to UC Berkeley. His freshman year, he took graduate level courses and played on the varsity chess team. He's the youngest person to ever deliver a lecture at Harvard University. He served as a fellow for the MIT Media Lab. He is interned, he had an internship offer. Because of his deep interest in physics and space and internship with NASA in 2021. He knows multiple languages, Spanish, Arabic. He's skilled at playing both the piano and guitar. And he became one of the youngest vice presidents of the National Basketball Players Association and established a bridge program in partnership with MIT to support high school students of color in pursuing STEM careers. This guy, his credentials are there. He's a smart guy. And I I've seen all these different analyses and And reasons as to why people think this, bro. I have no other, nothing else crosses my mind but the fact that the people in positions of power who are these anonymous, these people who are hiding behind, like this anonymous GM title or whatever, you are like an intelligent African-American, dark-skinned man makes you scared, bro. Jalen Brown's intelligence makes people scared because people don't want. someone like him in his position, as skilled as he is at basketball, to also have a brain and be able to think for himself and express himself. That's why they don't like him having a twitch. They don't like the fact that he's he doesn't need basketball to define his legacy and define his career. Because he's going to be like he's an educated black man with or without a basketball in his hand. He's someone who's going to speak his mind with or without a basketball in his hand. And it's like that to a lot of people is the scariest thing in the world. A highly educated black man Is the scariest thing to s in in in some folks' eyes, especially people in positions of power who are trying like make a team like mold to their will and bend to their will, bro. That this is like I've never seen a player ever get like just outright disrespected like this after having the best season of his life. Like, and I I I I hate to say this, but I'm like, bro, hate to play the hypothetical game. But you cannot convince me if the roles were reversed and Jason Tatum just had this type of season. That he be and and he got he's the one that got traded, that folks would be coming up with these type of comments, bro. They've been disrespecting that man for too many years, bro. I ain't gonna lie. I I hope he I hope he fries them all next year, bro. I'm not gonna lie. I hope he fries them.