NBA fans were shocked this week when Celtics star Jaylen Brown found himself in the crosshairs of Nike’s social media team. The moment, which went viral online, peaked when Brown responded to Nike and called them out for being weird.
“Yall got weird energy,” wrote Brown on X.
The moment came after Giannis’ 59-point game on Wednesday, which empowered Nike to post a subtle jab at the Celtics star.
“Nothing childish about ‘em. 59 for the Greek freak,” wrote Nike Basketball in a viral post.
While Jaylen Brown and Giannis Antetokounmpo aren’t quite rivals, they have faced off a number of times in their career with varying results. Of course, as one fan pointed out, Brown has been putting Giannis on the wrong end of highlight plays for years now.
That's cool, here's Jaylen Brown dunking on Giannis in every Celtics jersey.pic.twitter.com/fERuZwFYQM https://t.co/ajRnYtANDx
— CelticsGlobe (@celtsglobe) November 14, 2024
Since Giannis is a featured Nike athlete, it’s no surprise that the company came to his support after his big night. What many didn’t expect was the dig at Jaylen Brown, who recently called Giannis “childish” for doing a fake-out handshake in the heat of battle. The Bucks still lost the game, but it didn’t stop Giannis from speaking up about the moment after the buzzer.
There, he confirmed that there was no malicious intent and said that nothing would stop him from being himself. A few nights later, Giannis got his revenge in the form of a 59-point explosion against the Detroit Pistons that avoided a disastrous 3-9 start.
Meanwhile, Jaylen Brown is standing on business with the Celtics, who are currently 2nd in the East at 10-3. Coming off his first NBA championship, Brown is fully committed to the mission to repeat as champions and cement himself as one of the All-Time greats. Brown’s falling out with Nike has become common knowledge at this point but now it seems they’re full-blown adversaries.
After not getting an invitation to join Team USA this summer, Nike was the first one that Jaylen thought to blame and he took to social media to expose their role as gate-keepers to USA basketball. According to Brown, not being a Nike athlete cost him a chance to win gold this summer and it will cost him even more over the next few years to come.
This summer, Brown has been highly outspoken against the Nike brand, condemning their power and unchecked control in the world of sports. He’s made a borderline enemy out of the company and that’s been made clear now with their main basketball account taking subtle shots for everyone to see.
While Nike does not control every asset of the NBA sphere, they do have a fairly large influence in the league with many of the top superstars being signed with the company, including LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Ja Morant, and Devin Booker (among others).
Nike is also the NBA’s jersey sponsor since 2017 when they took over from Addidas. Clearly, the legendary brand has cast its net deep into the NBA world and its presence looms larger than any other company in the league.
So when they saw their top critic going after one of their own (Giannis Antetokounmpo), they knew they had to step in with an epic response. Unfortunately for them, the fans didn’t respond particularly well and all it did was justify some of Jaylen Brown’s grievances with the company.
Going forward, Nike will have to be much more discrete in how they handle stars partnered with rival brands but they won’t be going away anytime soon. In fact, with the game itself growing in popularity every year, Nike will likely only double down on their efforts to expand their power in the NBA and reward their athletes with unbeatable perks.
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