Was Jaylen Brown Snubbed from Team USA?

Jaylen Brown racked up quite the number of accolades this past season. From Eastern Conference Finals MVP, to Finals MVP and being an NBA Champion it’s safe to say he’s proved himself as one of the top players in the NBA.

Following an All-NBA snub, Brown led the Celtics to a dominate playoff run that resulted in an NBA Championship. So when it was announced on Wednesday that Kawhi Leonard would be withdrawing from the Paris Olympics and Team USA needed to fill the roster spot, they called on the most recent NBA Champions the Boston Celtics again…but not for Jaylen Brown.

Instead, Team USA went with Celtics all-around guard Derrick White. White joins fellow teammates Jrue Holiday and Jayson Tatum on the Team USA roster for the Paris Olympics, but arguably Boston’s best player in Brown was left off the roster.

Jaylen Brown is obviously capable of playing with the best of the best on Team USA’s roster. He was selected as one of 28 NBA players to try out for the Olympic roster that eventually was narrowed down to 12 players.

“If I’m Jaylen, if the criticism you received last year if it didn’t fire him up, he should be fired up even more because I just think, and then remember Devin Booker kinda took his spot on All-NBA team too,” said Gary Washburn.

Following the replacement of Kawhi Leonard with Derrick White, Jaylen Brown posted a cryptic message on X, perhaps confused why he was left off of the roster.

Kawhi Leonard and Jaylen Brown are both talented wings who can defend, making this a seemingly great fit for Team USA. With Derrick White, it appears that Team USA decided to go in a different direction. They went with a player who doesn’t demand as much attention offensively, can play his role off the ball and excel at making small differences on both sides of the ball.

“You got Devin Booker whose team lost in the first round who’s obviously a very talented player but not coming off a great year and he’s there,” explained Gary Washburn.

The three-time NBA All-Star, Finals MVP and NBA Champion can add one more thing to his list of snubs as the Celtics go into the 2024-2025 NBA season looking to go back-to-back as NBA champions.