Jaylen Brown Reveals His Favorite Player as a Kid

Every basketball player is inspired by someone they watched play before them. That goes for random kids on the black top all the way to the biggest NBA stars. For some stars, their hero is obvious. You can watch players like Devin Booker and Jayson Tatum and know that they learned from watching Kobe Bryant. 

Not all players followed the Michael Jordans and Kobe Bryants of the world. Jaylen Brown, who is in the middle of another All-NBA season, recently spoke about who he wanted to emulate his game after. 

“TMAC is my inspiration — one of my favorite players of all time. I think I tagged him, and he responded. In that response, I remember he put: Remember humble and hungry. You probably can still find that tweet somewhere. Later, I played in my first All-Star game in 2020 or 2021. I had Adidas put that on the shoes, “Remember Humble and Hungry.” I wore the TMACs because I remember watching the All-Star game when Mac was wearing one red shoe, one blue shoe; how iconic that was.”

Brown and McGrady actually have similar builds, and when you put their career stats side by side, a clear picture is painted. McGrady averaged 19.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game during his 16 year NBA career. Brown has averaged 19.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 2.9 assists in his 10 NBA seasons. On top of their nearly identical averages, Brown has five All-Star appearances to McGrady’s seven. 

The two biggest glaring differences in McGrady and Brown’s accomplishments is when it comes down to other accolades. Brown has only made one All-NBA team in his career, while TMAC has made seven. Individual accomplishments aren’t everything, though. Brown has the one thing that TMAC will never. That’s an NBA championship and Finals MVP trophy.