After winning the NBA championship and the Finals MVP in June, Jaylen Brown’s summer was focused on a major off-court venture. Since 2021, the three-time All-Star has been without a shoe deal. He reportedly even turned down $50 million endorsement offers to prioritize his own brand, 741.
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JB showed up on the Stephen A. Smith show today, where he spoke about his new company and how Kobe Bryant inspired it.
“A lot of the reason why I started this shoe company is because I read an article around 2019 or so that Kobe was doing the same thing before he passed…”
“He wanted to give athletes better percentages and better deals and allow them to be able to invest into the company as it grows…And I remember like, ‘Man, how cool would it be if I could be one of those athletes?’”
Though he couldn’t do it under Kobe’s brand, Brown is certainly one of those athletes now. And by admitting Kobe’s influence on his basketball journey and his brand, the Celtics star is also contributing to the Mamba’s evergreen legacy.
When the Celtics drafted him in 2016, JB signed with Adidas on a 5-year deal. After that expired, he was a sneaker free agent, donning both Adidas and Nike.
However, when Nike dropped Kyrie Irving during the pandemic, Brown became a vocal opponent of the brand – a position he doubled down on this summer when he alleged that the $123 billion company had influenced his snub from Team USA’s Olympic roster.
The 27-year-old’s dissent laid the foundation of his own shoe brand.
Shervin Pishevar, one of the investors behind Uber, revealed that Kobe was very much on the same path before his untimely demise. “What he was about to do in business was going to eclipse his sports career,” Pishevar wrote. Bryant was working with the investor to launch “Mamba”, a shoe brand that would give athletes greater ownership over their likeness.
It’s clear that JB wants to honor that pursuit and attempt to level the playing field in favor of athletes. It’s his way of paying homage to the late, great Kobe Bryant.
During his sit-down with Stephen A. Smith, Brown also revealed, “I never got to meet Kobe, you know and he passed. Never got to shake his hand, um, never got to build with him. But you know, some of the stuff that’s left behind, I like to walk in because I think Kobe was one of the reasons I picked up a basketball in the first place.”
With agency and ownership at the forefront of his new venture, Brown is establishing 741, not just as a sneaker brand, but as a model for the next generation of NBA stars to follow. His first independent release, the ‘Rover’ goes live on October 22, the Celtics’ opening day.
