Brown focused on helping
He’s providing for Donda students
Celtics star Jaylen Brown parted ways with Kanye West’s Donda Sports marketing agency on Wednesday following a series of antisemitic comments by the rapper. But Brown said he is now turning his focus toward helping the children who attended Donda Academy, the unaccredited private school in Simi Valley, Calif., that was founded by West and was shut down Thursday.
“These kids have nothing to do with what’s really going on,” Brown said Friday night. “They don’t deserve to abruptly have their season end, or abruptly have their school year cut or diminished because of the actions of others. So I’ve been trying to lean in to get resources together to make sure that doesn’t happen. We live in a society where people see a headline and they feel like they know everything about a situation. I spent a lot of time with Donda, teaching, building relationships with those kids, those parents. The only thing they are guilty of is trying to get a unique opportunity to get ahead in life.”
Donda Academy, which includes about 100 students and is focused on online learning, is also home to a high-profile basketball team that was founded by West. In the wake of West’s recent comments, the team had invitations to several tournaments revoked. Since the school has been closed for the remainder of the year, the squad’s status is in jeopardy anyway. Brown said on Twitter on Friday that he would look to sponsor events involving the team.
After the Celtics’ 132-123 overtime loss to the Cavaliers on Friday, Brown stressed that he’ll do everything in his power to ensure that the school’s students don’t lose opportunities.
“For you guys, maybe, it’s an association affiliated to Kanye West, but to me, it’s a school with kids, with parents, with teachers that have names and faces that I got to work with,” he said. “So I look at that situation differently. I plan to use my platform to make sure those kids get what’s promised to them.”
A jump defense
With a little more than seven minutes left in Friday’s game, Cavaliers forward Isaac Okoro caught the ball on the right arc with Celtics center Luke Kornet lurking in the paint about 15 feet away. Kornet didn’t have the time or speed to close out on Okoro, so the 7-foot-2inch center just raised his arms and jumped vertically, a seemingly laughable attempt at a deterrent from such a far distance.
The shot missed but ended up back in Okoro’s hands after it was batted around. He lined up his next attempt, and Kornet once again jumped vertically while standing in the paint. Afterward, he explained that it was a calculated decision.
“That was something that I started doing and I’ve been told it works,” Kornet said. “I kind of came about it pretty organically. I’ve been told that it makes a difference. From the amount of times I’ve used it, it seems to make a difference. If numbers start indicating otherwise, then I’ll adjust. But, as long as it seems to be effective . . . I’ll keep doing that.”
Kornet said that the goal is to simply take away the shooter’s view of the rim, even if from afar and just momentarily. He said he began experimenting with the technique while playing in the G League over the last two seasons.
“And I do that in practice a lot with people really just saying, like, ‘I couldn’t see the goal,’ ” Kornet said. “It’s not perfect every time and it’s not the perfect thing for all types of people, but we’re visually dependent people. So if you could do it right and it has some effect [it’s worthwhile].”
Option picked up
The Celtics on Saturday picked up third-year guard Payton Pritchard’s $4 million team option for the 2023-24 season, according to a league source.
After averaging 6.2 points over 71 regular-season games last year, Pritchard has appeared in just two of Boston’s first five games this season, logging a total of nine minutes. He mostly fell out of coach Ime Udoka’s rotation last season before several February trades created new opportunities, and he appeared in all 24 Celtics playoff games.