The Celtics have officially traded Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and draft compensation. It’s a move that will be scrutinized by many for its underwhelming basketball return.
On the court, the organization parts ways with a five-time All-Star and a former Finals MVP, a player who has been one of their franchise cornerstones for nearly a decade.
On the court, the Celtics lose a player who finished 6th in MVP voting last season, and someone who helped lead the team to six conference
Finals appearances, two Finals, and one title. Without question, Brown is one of the NBA’s elite scorers, and — as he pointed out in a Tweet on Saturday — no one has won more combined regular-season and playoff games than him since he entered the league.
On the court, it will be hard for the Celtics to replace his production, and the basketball implications of the trade remain to be seen.
On the court, Brown departs as one of just six Finals MVPs in franchise history.
But off the court, Brown’s impact is even more profound and hard to measure. Since he arrived in Boston, Brown decided he wanted to make an impact in the community, connect with the kids who live in the city, and invest in entrepreneurs and creators from underrepresented groups. He launched multiple endeavors — first the 7uice Foundation, and later Boston XChange — immersed himself in the city, and became a fixture in the community.
Basketball pundits can debate the franchise’s return in the trade all they want, but no matter how you slice it, there’s an off-court component to the transaction that will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to quantify.
But, let’s take a quick look at it.
Jaylen Brown’s legacy begins with the 7uice Foundation
Jaylen Brown launched the 7uice Foundation in 2019 to bridge the opportunity gap for youth in underserved communities. The foundation houses the Bridge program, an educational, week-long camp for youth from the Greater Boston Area, as well as several other endeavors meant to promote education.
Throughout my three seasons covering Brown, I attended the majority of his many off-court events and routinely observed one thing: no matter how busy his schedule got, he spent hours on end with kids eager to meet with him, asking them questions, getting to know them, and for the extent of their interactions, making them feel like the most important people in the room.
In February, Brown hosted a first-of-its-kind college fair in Roxbury. Ambassadors from Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Hampton, and other universities were in attendance, as were various internship and job programs. Brown estimated over 100 different partners came to the Boys and Girls Club for the event, all with the intent of showing the local youth their futures hold plenty of options, even “when people, or society, are counting on them to fail.”
“[The goal was] just to take a bunch of resources and bring them to a place that typically doesn’t have the same access,” Brown said.
The Celtics star regularly partnered with higher education institutions and community groups. Last year, on Juneteenth, he gifted sneakers to students at the Berkshire Partners Blue Hill Club in Dorchester. He had his shoe and apparel line, 741 Performance, partnered with a marketing class at Babson College and worked directly with undergraduate students in the program.
Jaylen Brown worked to immerse himself in the Boston community
Over the years, Brown regularly visited schools across Boston, sometimes on camera, and more often more under-the-radar.
Andrea Swain, the Boys and Girls Club’s chief impact officer, noted that Brown’s involvement in the community is nothing new.
“He’s been doing it since he arrived in Boston,” she told CelticsBlog. “He’s everywhere. He’s been at some of the playgrounds in Roxbury — he’s an active, engaged figure, and a lot of stuff he does is off camera. He’ll come and give out turkeys in the community, give encouragement.”
Last summer, after the Celtics second-round elimination to the New York Knicks, Brown took it upon himself to surprise students at five schools across Roxbury, andDorchester.
“People couldn’t stop talking about it, I can’t even lie,” Jaylon Mason, a graduating senior at Brooke High School, told CelticsBlog after Brown visited his school. “It’s the equivalent of, like, sitting on your bed and eating cereal, watching TV, and like, Obama comes in.”
With the Bridge Program, Brown left his deepest imprint
In 2021, amid the Covid pandemic, Brown launched the Bridge program. Last summer, he let me attend the interdisciplinary program, which centered on robotics, artificial intelligence, climate change, food insecurity, data visualization, and a range of other topics. Hundreds of students from across the city attended for free.
“I wanted to send the kids who are helpful in their community, who seem to care, who want to strive to help and touch others,” Brown told me as the camp neared its conclusion. “I wanted to bring 100+ kids together, who all kind of had the same mentality.”
Brown attended the entirety of Bridge, all while rehabbing from his offseason knee surgery. He explained that he felt a prerogative to give back to the community given the immense power he has as a professional athlete.
“Even in a city like Boston, some of our most prominent figures in sports are more influential than any of the political leaders here,” Brown said. “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.”
He credits his grandmother for teaching him from a young age that he had to work hard to make an impact: “The quote that I would say that encapsulates that is: There are a bunch of people who complain about society, but do little to contribute to it. And my grandma was like, ‘You’re not gonna be one of those people.’ You can’t live in a community for 10 years plus, and have contributed nothing outside of whatever business you’re doing.”
Brown and his mother, Mechalle, are working to turn the Bridge program into a year-long program.
Jaylen Brown uplifted entrepreneurs via Boston XChange
Jaylen Brown launched Boston XChange with teammate Jrue Holiday in 2024. The XChange is an incubator that each year provides $100,000 in funding, as well as transformative resources, to ten businesses led by entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities. The XChange just finished accepting applications for its second cohort.
Among those businesses is the Future Masters Chess Academy, a chess program aimed at supporting underserved youth across the state. Brown met Lawyer Times, the academy’s founder and a lifelong chess player, a decade ago, and they hit it off due to their mutual love for the game.
“We talked about our missions and our vision – and they aligned,” Times told CelticsBlog. “He wants young people, especially from underrepresented communities, to use their minds, not just to be thought of as athletes.”
The Academy has received so much support and investment from Boston XChange that Times was able to retire from his job at the U.S. Post Office after 40 years.
Last year, Brown hosted the chess academy – alongside the nine other first-year grant recipients – for an intimate dinner at his apartment. They sat at family-style tables, and Brown spent all evening getting to know each of the entrepreneurs on a personal level.
“It was phenomenal – just being right there, talking to him once again, talking about our mission,” Times said. “His mind is so next level. And he was telling me about how this is an opportunity right now to really change the narrative in so many ways.”
Jaylen Brown wants to be remembered for his off-court work
When I attended the Bridge program last summer, Jaylen Brown explained to me that he had been working hard to ensure that all of his philanthropic endeavors could be self-sustaining without him. And, though the majority of his free time was spent in the gym, rehabbing from knee surgery and working on his game, Brown felt his most important contributions to Boston came far from the court.
“Yeah, I play for the Celtics,” Brown said. “Yeah, I started businesses here. But I’ve also been in the community. I’ve been in the Boys and Girls Clubs. I’ve connected with people. I spend time. People know me by name because I spend time in the community.”
“Sports are very powerful. But there are other things that are more important.”
