🏀 Brown is Seeing Green 🤑

Jaylen Brown signed a contract for approximately four kajillion dollars yesterday. Good for him! Even though his high school teacher had absolutely zero faith in him back in the day, he kept on following his dream.

So believe in yourself! Cause we certainly do. Let’s all adopt a Kevin Garnett mentality, okay? Okay. 🤝

Today’s Lineup

Seeing Green 🤑: Jaylen Brown got that Al Hillal money.

Golden Years👨‍💼: This NBA player became a senator in retirement!

ICE! 🧊: We interviewed the one and only Ice Cube!

But before we dive into money, politics and rappers, here’s a quick quiz:

Jaylen Green 🤑 

Jaylen Brown just signed the biggest contract in NBA history: a 5-year/$304 million deal. We thought he should change his name to Jaylen Green, but then we realized that we have one of those already.

Seriously, this deal is like Mbappé-level crazy. It totally reframes what contracts are in the NBA. How can Boston, or any team for that matter, construct a championship-level roster when they have to pay $60 million to retain an All-Star level player?

Jaylen Brown is an amazing hooper and his ability to score on all three levels is rare, but seeing MVP-level money go to someone like him tingles our Spidey senses 🕷️. Still, congrats are in order for Brown, who earned his first All-NBA honors last year and played his way to all $300+ million he’s getting. Every last penny…

Golden Years 👴 

Welcome to Golden Years, a new segment where we cover what retired players have done in their free time since they hung it up!

For our first subject, meet Bill Bradley, the epitome of a student-athlete! Not only was he an exceptional NBA player, but he became a United States Senator from New Jersey after he retired. The man went from passing the rock to passing legislation like it was nothing.

The 6’5” wing attended Princeton University and majored in history. If you go to Bradley’s BasketballReference page, you’ll see that it says he played in Italy during his first two years as a pro… because he was there to fulfill his Rhodes Scholarship! Insane stuff.

Bill played all ten of his NBA seasons with the Knicks, including an All-Star appearance in 1973. Averaging double-digit points for most of his career, the most notable part of Bradley’s career was being a part of the two championships in Knicks franchise history: 1970 and 1973.

Then, just two years after his retirement in 1977, Bradley got elected as a US Senator and served until 1997! Who knew a basketball player could transition so smoothly into politics? Which makes us wonder…

Get Ready to Learn Chinese!

Global news alert! Memphis Grizzlies wing Kyle Anderson acquired Chinese citizenship and will play for the Chinese national team as soon as next month’s FIBA World Cup. Anderson, whose great-grandfather was Chinese, has been reconnecting with his Chinese roots over the past few months.

The chances that “Slo-Mo” was making Team USA anytime soon were probably slim, so we’re happy that he can now become China’s own Wilt Chamberlain. But more importantly, we love this story because through the sport we all love, Anderson was able to explore his ancestry and discover a new culture to be a part of. 🏀 🌏

Frozen Moments

• Jayson Tatum explained why he doesn’t load manage and we loved it…

• Giannis had some serious advice to young hoopers. ❤️

• How can 42-year-old Jason Richardson still do this???

What We’re Enjoying

We interviewed Ice Cube! After sitting in on the BIG3 and watching some retired hoopers get buckets, we talked to the 🧊 himself and he was just the coolest. Take a look at our interview with him:

enjoybball

View more on Instagram

Signing Off

Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey-hey-hey, goodbye! 👋 We’ll catch ya on Friday, Enjoyers!

-Conor Geelan

Trivia Answer: Jamal Crawford has not been in the BIG 3…at least not yet! We would love to see JCrossover do unfathomable things against other retirees in a 3V3 setting.

Before you go…

Happy birthday to Braxton, Jake, and Colin! And if YOU want a birthday shout-out of your own, help us improve the newsletter experience by filling out our survey below!

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