Jaylen Brown was one of the Boston Celtics most consistently good players in the NBA bubble, but it turns out that he almost skipped it entire to help his grandfather after a cancer diagnosis.
On the Ellen show Tuesday, Brown revealed for the diagnosis for first time. He’d let on that his grandfather was “dealing with a lot right now" after the Celtics got past the Toronto Raptors. But no one knew the extent of it until now.
“My grandpa was diagnosed with cancer right before they were talking about going into the bubble,” Brown said on the show. “He’s been living with me for the past four, five, six months. He needed me around. But when we had the conversation, he didn’t necessarily want to start his chemo.”
Brown says his grandfather, Willie Brown was ready to come to terms with his fate. But they had a conversation that convinced him to keep fighting.
“He just said he was done, he said he was tired,” Brown said. “How I convinced him was I said I was going to go down there and play, but you’ve got to play too. So he liked the sound of that and he signed up.”
Brown says while he might not have initially wanted to fight again, his grandfather is a fighter at heart.
“He’s like the toughest guy I’ve ever met, by the way.” Brown said. “He’s like a superhero. He’s been to the Vietnam war, he’s been shot in the head twice, he’s had a heart attack, cancer, COVID, all at the same time and he has beaten it all.”
Brown now says Willie, or “The Great Will B” as they like to call him is doing great as he continues through treatments. Grandpa Brown frequently appeared on Jaylen’s Instagram feed prior to the restart, putting the Celtics forward through tough-boxing based workouts.
“We said we needed him to help me train and get back ready for the season, so he could feel comfortable sticking around here,” Jaylen told the Globe back in May. “But on the other side of that, he’s like, ‘OK, we’re going to train then.’ We’ve been training hard and a lot. On one hand, it’s great that he’s comfortable being here, but on the other he’s making me work my [butt] off.”
The preparation paid off for Brown, who was Boston’s second-leading scorer in the playoffs, averaging 21.8 points per game. He was also the second-leading rebounder and his 58.6% true shooting made him the most efficient starter in the postseason.
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