Jabari Bird and Jaylen Brown switch roles in NBA
Brown and Bird both played for the University of California, Berkeley during their NCAA days, and while Jaylen is now the more experienced teammate, being responsible for showing his colleague how things work in the big leagues, back in school, it was just the opposite. When Jaylen committed to joining the Golden Bears for their 2015-2016 season, Jabari was entering his Junior year at the school.
The Cal recruiting class that season was one of their best. Along with Jaylen, the team convinced five star power forward Ivan Rabb, now a Memphis Grizzly, to join their squad. While adding impressive Freshman is a yearly goal for college scouts and coaches, reeling the players in is only a piece of the offseason puzzle. Once they get on campus, the students need to get situated and must learn their team's daily routines. This is where the more experienced players, like Bird, come in.
Jabari Bird on former Cal teammate Jaylen Brown: "Now he's the OG. I'm trying to learn from him." pic.twitter.com/PTn1bzKxHw— Tom Westerholm (@Tom_NBA) September 25, 2017
The older JB took the younger under his wing for that single season that they played together in college, where the two started 22 of 34 games together, and now that Bird has entered the pros, Brown is the one leading the way. On his transition to the NBA, Bird said:
During the only season that they played at Cal together, the team went 23-11, finishing third in the PAC-12, and while they made the tournament in March, they lost in the round of 64 to Hawaii. Jaylen averaged 14.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 2 assists over 27 minutes that season, and Bird tallied 10.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 1 assist over the same amount of playing time.
The two seemed to mesh on the court, and are friendly when not wearing the same jerseys as well, referring to each other as 'brothers' when asked about their relationship off the court. Hopefully the two will play well together as Celtics, and will develop into players that we'll be watching for a long time.
Can confirm: Jaylen is an O.G.
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It's been fun, honestly. [Brown's] done a really good job of helping me out, showing me around, telling me things I should expect going into training camp of my first year. Honestly, I see it as an advantage going into my rookie year, to have somebody who's been through it already and just came off a good rookie year and can kind've show me the way.
During the only season that they played at Cal together, the team went 23-11, finishing third in the PAC-12, and while they made the tournament in March, they lost in the round of 64 to Hawaii. Jaylen averaged 14.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 2 assists over 27 minutes that season, and Bird tallied 10.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 1 assist over the same amount of playing time.
The two seemed to mesh on the court, and are friendly when not wearing the same jerseys as well, referring to each other as 'brothers' when asked about their relationship off the court. Hopefully the two will play well together as Celtics, and will develop into players that we'll be watching for a long time.
Can confirm: Jaylen is an O.G.
Follow OWaukewan
Photo 1: Cal
