Grant Hill Reveals Future Team USA Possibility For Celtics Star Jaylen Brown
The door to joining Team USA in the future is still open for Brown
Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown missed out on the 2024 Paris Olympics in controversial fashion.
But Brown’s Olympic dream isn’t completely dead.
USA Basketball managing director Grant Hill won’t cross Brown off the list of representing the stars and stripes at the next Olympic Games four years from now. And that comes after a wave of turmoil in which Brown called out Team USA’s association with Nike and went after Hill following the decision to replace Kawhi Leonard with Celtics teammate Derrick White before the Olympics began.
“It’s a lot of noise. I’m confident he and I will sit down at some point and talk about it and get to some level of understanding,” Hill said on the “Open Run With Rachel Nichols” show. “Look, he’ll be a candidate if he wants in ’28.”
Hill added: “One thing I learned, you can’t take anything personal in this role and so, I haven’t personalized anything. My goal, my objective is to win. And then soon as hopefully that happens, we pivot and start looking ahead to the future.”
With players like LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant seemingly playing in their final Olympics, it wouldn’t be a surprise if a Team USA roster spot opens up for Brown in the future. Brown was a part of the player pool — there were 41 players in total on that list — used to determined the 12-player Team USA roster for the Olympics.
Brown would be 31 years old the next time the Olympics occur and certainly already has the credentials to play for Team USA. He is a three-time All-Star and earned NBA Finals MVP honors this past June.
But who knows if Brown will even be willing to accept an invite to the next Olympics given his feelings on how the situation played out this summer. The Celtics forward even teased that he was going to drop more information on the saga when the time called for it.
“It was disappointing,” Hill said of the situation with Brown. “You got to do your job. You got to do the job the best you can. I’ve tried to do this the right way. When we first put out the roster back in April — before it was announced — I called certain guys. I called Paul George. I called Damian Lillard. I called Jaylen Brown.
“I felt like they were of a certain stature where they deserved to hear it before it was made public. And I appreciated their willingness to want to be a part of this. But also wanted them to appreciate how difficult this was.”
