Jaylen Brown’s drive to be better goes back to school days in Georgia

Bulpett: Jaylen Brown’s drive to be better goes back to school days in Georgia



Steve Bulpett


Thursday, July 07, 2016




Credit: AP photo

NO SUMMER VACATION: Jaylen Brown is hard at work to prove his worth as the No. 3 overall pick for the Celtics.




SALT LAKE CITY — In the summer of 2011, Jaylen Brown had just completed eighth grade. He had a thirst for learning and a love of basketball, and before his break was through, he would have something else.

A full basketball scholarship offer to Georgia Tech.


Brian Gregory, then coach of the Yellow Jackets, already knew of the slim 6-foot-2 kid who lived some 10 minutes away from campus. Then he saw. Then he heard. Brown had been coming to Tech to grow his game against better competition.

“We were going to have another open gym, and he was in there an hour and a half early working out hard before he was going to play against college kids,” said Gregory. “He hadn’t even started ninth grade and he knows he’s going to play against college players, and he gets a workout in even before the open gym.

“So before anything happened that particular night, I got to talk to him because he was on campus, and I just told him, ‘Hey, you’re the type of guy that you want to build a program around. I know how good you are, and by just seeing your work ethic here in terms of getting here early to work out, I’m offering you a scholarship now.’

“That’s going a little bit ahead of the game, because who knows what he’s going to be in four years, but you could just tell. If you spend any time with him, he just has one of those personalities that you just know nothing’s going to stop him from being the best.”

Gregory could see Brown working out beforehand, but because some of his Tech players were involved later, NCAA rules prevented him from watching the pickup games. He didn’t need to. He had “scouts.”

“We were getting the feedback from our guys after the first night,” said Gregory. “We’re talking about guys like Glen Rice Jr. that all went on to play professional basketball here and overseas, and they found out he hadn’t started his freshman year in high school yet. They all said, ‘That kid’s the real deal.’ You just knew from Day 1 that he was going to be special. You just knew it.”

Those days were very important to Brown, as well. He was a 14-year-old kid pushing his basketball boundaries. He may have had an idea that he could be good, but he didn’t know.

“BG was great for me,” said Brown, who has used his drive to make it all the way to the NBA as the Celtics first-round draft pick. “I wasn’t recruited or anything yet, and I was just a little skinny kid, probably 165 pounds. But it meant a lot that he saw the potential in me. I’m here today, and it kind of started with Brian Gregory, working out at Georgia Tech when I was younger and him giving me confidence. He helped me a lot, talking to me about things and working on my game.

“I wanted to get better, so that’s what I had to do. I had to go to Georgia Tech and play. It was a great place for me to evaluate myself and see where I was at compared to college kids and trying to get better from there.”

Gregory didn’t want Brown to leave. He hoped he’d take that scholarship.

“Our whole recruiting pitch was to stay at home and do something special,” said Gregory, who was let go this year after a 21-15 season. “I was honest with him. I said, ‘You’re a guy that will probably only be in college for eight months. Why not do it right here in Atlanta?’

“One of the recruiting things we did when I went into his home in the fall of his senior year was that I had logged every time I saw him play — every time he came for an unofficial visit, every time he came to one of our games. And we put each of them on a separate piece of paper, and I put them down on his living room floor one by one. We had the whole floor covered with 81⁄2-by-11 pieces of paper with dates. Was it the game against North Carolina? Was it me watching him play in Las Vegas, me watching him play for Wheeler High School versus whoever? You could tell he enjoyed that, but my whole thing was, ‘No one knows you better than I do.’”

It didn’t work. Brown went to Cal.

“Yeah, I’d been home for a long time, so I wanted to get away,” he said. “I didn’t want to just stay in Georgia my whole life. I wanted to experience new things, so when I’m 50 years old I can tell my kids and my grandkids what I did in California when I was 18 and 19 years old, instead of just staying in the same place.”

Even the manner in which Brown turned down the Tech offer impressed Gregory.

“I’ll tell you one thing: he called me up and said, ‘Hey, BG, I just want to let you know I appreciate everything, but I’m going to leave the state to go to school. I haven’t made a decision yet where I’m going to go, but I wanted to let you know,’ ” said Gregory. “And it’s amazing how few kids do that. You can recruit a kid for a long time, but there’s hardly any who will call you and tell you they’re going somewhere else. You find out on Twitter.

“But not with Jaylen — and that just speaks to his character. There’s a core value system that his mom instilled in him. She was obviously a big influence. There’s a character piece with him that you can’t measure in terms of the impact it’s going to have even as a rookie.”

And Gregory has no doubt Brown will have a major impact on the Celtics for many years.

“From a high character standpoint, he’s as good as there is in the country,” the coach said. “And when you look at the Boston Celtics and what Brad (Stevens) is building, he’s building a culture there. You’ve got to bring in talented guys, and Jaylen’s as talented as anyone around, but you have to have character, too. You always say you can win games with talent, but to win championships, you’ve got to have talent and character. And Jaylen fits that perfectly.

“Brad’s done a great job there, and when you build, you need those pillars, and he’s going to be one of them.

“He just has the aura around him that he knows he’s good, so he’s got confidence. But he’s never satisfied with where he’s at.”

Jaylen Brown wasn’t satisfied with being an eighth grade basketball star, and after a few days around him at summer league, it’s clear that he’s not satisfied with being the third overall pick in the NBA draft.



bob


.