We catch up with NBA player Jaylen Brown in this FRONTPAGE story. Brown is making history and setting a standard for style on and off the court.

When Jaylen Brown signed a record-setting $304 million deal with the Boston Celtics last summer, he became the highest-paid player in NBA history. He had been playing for seven years and had already been to two NBA All-Star games and been picked for the All-NBA second team last season. Brown and his partner Jayson Tatum are one of the best one-two punches in the league. They have helped the Celtics become a perennial title candidate.

Brown has always been known for what he values as a person as well as what he does in the game. Even when he was a little boy growing up in Marietta, Georgia, which is a neighborhood of Atlanta, Brown seemed interested in life. Brown had the chance to make a real difference in the community as an NBA player, but before that, he was just another kid growing up in the cultural heart of the United States, trying to show off his unique style more than everyone else. 

What kind of car do you have? What does your lady look like? Everyone is trying to beat the other at what they do by showing off their best clothes, cars, and girlfriends. “That’s just the way things were in Atlanta, especially when I was in high school,” he says. “There was a lot of competition.”

When asked what artists influenced his style back then, the NBA star throws out names like Young Thug, Future, Migos, T.I., Gucci Mane, and Ludacris right away. But his favorite artists are Big Boi and André 3000 from OutKast. Both with their songs and their clothes, they pushed the limits.

Brown says, “Their style caught my eye more than anything else.” Some of the clothes they were wearing made me think, ‘Man, I wouldn’t wear that.’ But it was cool to see how they were showing themselves through their music and clothes.

Brown’s favorite clothes as a kid were white Air Force 1s, Ed Hardy t-shirts, True Religion pants, and Hermès belts. Brown dressed in popular styles, but he wasn’t afraid to make his own. With his short shorts, he stood out in the gym and became known for that style. It was popular at the time for men to wear their shorts way above their knees, but Brown wore his shorts this way. 

Players on the other team would make fun of his shorts, which makes Brown shake his head now that 5-inch inseams are common and short shorts are the new standard on the basketball floor. Brown laughs and says, “Now all the young guys wear their shorts up, showing their whole leg.” 

Brown was a five-star prospect and had offers from Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA, Kentucky, and other well-known college basketball teams across the country. He decided to attend the University of California, Berklee instead. He was clear on what he wanted to get out of the intellectual part of his year of college. He did it. He meditated, learned Spanish, and talked with his teachers on campus for hours on end, taking in information from everywhere. A lot of people in Brown’s family have worked in education, like his mother, Michelle. It’s easy to see how their beliefs have affected him. 

Brown wants to learn, but he also wants to teach others what he has learned. When the Celtics picked him third overall in the 2016 draft, he began to think about how to make his way. 

Brown is proud to say, “People forget that I was the first player picked in the NBA draft without an agent.” “I didn’t have a manager, a public relations team, or an agent.” Calling someone and writing the email myself is how I get things done. It was important to me to know where my business was going and be in charge of it. During the process, I learned a lot about how to run a business, describe myself, and use my time well.

During the 2018 All-Star Weekend, he put together a networking lunch and asked people from business, sports, and culture to share their knowledge with NBA players. 

Brown’s off-court activities are growing, and one of them is his clothesline called 7uice. Brown has always been interested in fashion. He’s been wearing glasses that match his clothes lately. While Brown talks about putting together an outfit like it’s a work of art, he also says that he is a person of habit and someone who likes to be comfortable. 

He still likes his white Air Force 1s best and says he’ll buy 100 new pairs every year just to stay cool. Even though he wears a lot of different clothes to the tunnel before games, he says that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and his famous outfit are another big fashion influence on him. He says, “That’s always been dope to me.” “When I get older, I think I could do something like that, where you make a uniform and wear the same thing for every event.” So many things are going through my mind, like how much time I could save if I didn’t have to spend an hour a day, seven days a week figuring out how I want to look, what I want to wear, how it fits, how bright it will be when I get there, and if they’re going to take pictures. It takes a lot of work and attention to detail to dress for the event.

To sum up, Brown cares about his time. Finding time to achieve his goals off the court can be hard for him as an NBA basketball player who is in the prime of his career. However, he has no regrets about the road he took to get into the league and start his brand.