On Jaylen Brown, boxing, and Kevin Garnett’s approach to the game

Intensity and studiousness aren’t often qualities we see in NBA players, but both can be used to describe Jaylen Brown and Kevin Garnett.

It probably goes without saying that boxing isn’t at the top of most players’ list of training strategies for basketball.

If you haven’t figured out by now that Jaylen Brown isn’t most players, this should be a solid introduction to that fact — the Cal-Berkeley product is a different sort of NBA player.

Bright. A natural networker and effective leader. A scholar of the game, among many things.

Very intense on the court.

When the pandemic struck, Brown was vocal about deferring to authorities on the matter — and had no fear of ruffling feathers criticizing the government of his home state of Georgia when he felt they weren’t listening to the experts in crafting policy.

He didn’t waste time planning his conditioning during the shutdown, either.

Instead, he enlisted the help of his grandfather Willie — a lifelong boxer who sparred with the likes of Muhammed Ali and Sonny Liston.

“He has me doing a lot of things I’ve never done before,” Brown related via the Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach. “It’s the old way of training. Everything he does is kind of a throwback, but it’s good. He’s never been stagnant, and I got that from him.”

Willie’s son (and Jaylen’s father) would go on to have a long, successful career as a heavyweight boxer himself.

Brown is a sponge, taking the best from what he finds in life, and making it his in ways few would otherwise imagine.

And now it seems the former Golden Bear has found Kevin Garnett.

While KG’s intensity might not at first seem to resonate with the often-quiet, thoughtful Georgian when he’s off the court, one should consider a trip to the optometrist if you can’t see the similarity when Brown is on a parquet.

And conversely, Garnett isn’t usually cast as much of a thinker, but the South Carolinian was famous for the near-ceaseless analysis of his opponents, a studious nature masked by his relentless comportment on-court.

The similarities should be becoming clearer.

Brown recently retweeted a video of KG discussing this aspect of his personality, noting how he loved the way the Big Ticket thought and approached the game.

“You know people just called me crazy because I wouldn’t get any sleep, but I would sit up and wonder why or what could I’ve done different,” began KG in the clip posted by BallIsLife.

“People think you crazy; people ain’t going to understand you. ‘Weird! What’s wrong with you?’ … Never met no nice guy who won anything,” he continued. “You’ve got to be a little crazy to play this game.”

“Some of this you ain’t gonna be comfortable with doing. Making him want to fight; manipulating the game. Him not liking you. Guess what? we don’t give a [expletive]. We go out here and don’t shake nobody’s hand; we don’t dap up. I know that’s your boy; yeah, I know. Between these lines, it’s us, and it’s them. He on the other side, bringing an animal out, making this mug uncomfortable for 48 minutes — no breaks, no plays off.”

This was the engine that drove Garnett on the court, and you can see hints of it in Brown when he’s locked in.

Is he locked in like KG was, almost every game, all year long? Of course not — Garnett was a rarity, his competitive fire seen in only a handful of players before or since, nearly all of them greats.

But, it is the standard to aspire to for those who would seek that sort of stature. Talent and athleticism are of course precursors, and physical gifts a blessing or a curse depending on one’s genetic lottery.

But Brown’s got those goods in his corner already, for the most part — can he pick up on this mentality as well?

“I want to sit down and really work on your game like I was working on mine,” related KG in the reposted clip. “I don’t believe it — I don’t believe it! I need to see it.”

The gym is already a place Brown can reliably be found; even in the offseason, on a a family trip, the Marietta native found ways to hone his craft in the offseason.

But is he ready to study film to the degree Garnett would to gain an advantage over his opponents?

“You see that? He’s got a weak left hand … he fouls, he’s lazy,” continued Garnett in the video.

“You’ve got to take advantage of that; you’ve got to see that for yourself. Foul him hard one time to see what he do. Dunk the ball to see what he do. We’re not trying to be no friends out here. This might not be for you. It’s consistency though; getting into a routine — watching film, studying, knowing that this is how you prepare; this is how you get ready for games.”

For Brown to truly make the leap to the next level, he can’t just keep adding to his game in terms of conditioning or skill acquisition.

By all means, those are critical to his progression as a player, but without the off-the-court study of his own capabilities and how they will interact with the players who will stand in his way, he’ll tap out as a very good player.

And there’s nothing even a little wrong with settling for that. Many do, and did. Not everyone appreciates this kind of mentality, after all — in fact, few do.

But Brown, always the scholar, clearly does. And so begins the next step, if he’s serious. It’s not a thing to put down, and come back to, as the man himself says:

“Not when we want to, not when we feeling good, not when the sun is out. Not when the rainbow is out here. Not when they’re cheer my name, when I got a check when they feeling me, nah. This is every day; when it’s raining, my knees hurt, and I can’t walk — 365 days.”

Still, Brown has shown he’s no shrinking violet when it comes to hard work; he’s training with a man whose job it was to bear the brunt of some of the toughest bruisers to step in the ring, after all.

Nor is he put off by learning from those who came before, even if their methods are a little unorthodox in today’s game.

While it would be foolish to set the bar so high for the 23-year-old shooting guard as to expect him to become KG reincarnate, some of the traits that made the recently-minted Hall-of-Famer a cut above his peers can be seen nascent in the fourth-year player just beginning to come into his own.

And if Brown can craft his own take on that mentality, “heavyweight” is a term we might choose to describe the young Celtic in a way that has little to do with his family trade.

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