It only took a matter of seconds for Brooklyn Nets fans to recognize Mikel Brown Jr. as the blue chip, potential franchise-carrying prospect they\u2019ve been searching for. On his first Summer League possession, roughly 51 ticks into the game, he notched his first assist. The following time down the floor, about a minute later, he splashed his first three points.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s no disrespect to Egor D\u00ebmin, the guy who hit him with a no-look feed to set up that first shot, or any of Brooklyn\u2019s other young pieces. Brown Jr. just happens to be the team\u2019s highest drafted player in over 15 years. There\u2019s a certain kind of energy that\u2019s created when a pick that high performs that well out of the gate.<\/p>\n
But while he\u2019s his team\u2019s foundational building block, the 2025 USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year, a McDonald\u2019s All-American, and member of the ACC All-Rookie team, there\u2019s still more to Brown Jr. We got a glimpse of it this week when he sat down with Sarah Kustok of The YES Network in a new Nets Pod episode.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could say since I was born,\u201d Brown Jr. said after Kustok asked when his love for the game began. \u201cMy parents, my parents were sports oriented. My mom was volleyball, dad was basketball. They were both still in college at the time when they had me, so I kind of had the ball into my hand right away. My dad and mom put the ball in my crib right away, and you know I never looked back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown Jr.\u2019s dad played college ball at the University of West Florida. His mother went to St. Petersburg. Between their tutelage, and with what he could gather from watching game growing up, Brown Jr. made it clear he\u2019s had an abundance basketball figures to look up to and learn from throughout his life. He listed just about every point guard you\u2019d like to hear when talking about the players he\u2019s aimed to model his game off of \u2014 even while still expressing an intent to maintain some originality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly don\u2019t watch one person because I want to be the best version of myself,\u201d he said. \u201cI really like take pieces of everybody else\u2019s game. I used to watch, I still do watch Steve Nash, [Rajon] Rondo, Chris Paul. Then nowadays, you got [Jalen] Brunson, Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander], Tyrese Maxey, Trae Young, Donovan Mitchell Dame [Lillard], and like everybody. I watch every single guard, even the the great defensive guards like Davion Mitchell, Jrue Holliday, Cason Wallace, and how they guard. I literally study from everybody on the court just to try to pick up the really good tendencies that they have and try to implement into my game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown already seems to be a fan of his new backcourt mate as well. When Kustok asked about his relationship with D\u00ebmin, he called it \u201cgreat\u201d and D\u00ebmin his \u201cdog.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201dWe joke all the time,\u201c Brown Jr. said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if y\u2019all seen it during the game. We were going back and forth all the time during the game, just joking around. That relationship is great. I think we kind of understand that me and him are kind of the young guns coming up, and just looking to get better. And looking to make each other better as well. Me and him could testify to this, that my job is to make life easier on him, and his job is to make life easier on me. So that bond clicked right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown Jr. also praised the Brooklyn front office and coaching staff. He\u2019s still keeping it formal with Sean Marks as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust great people, just great people to you know be around, and great people to also learn from,\u201d Brown Jr. said. \u201cYou know, Jordi [Fern\u00e1ndez], Mr. Marks, and BJ [Armstrong], and every everybody, Coach Jay [Hernandez], and the whole staff. It\u2019s just really great people that you could learn from every single day, because they\u2019ve been around greatness. So, to be able to pick their brains every single day, watch film with Jay and and CV [Corey Vinson] and all those guys, it\u2019s gonna help me in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown went on to call Fern\u00e1ndez a \u201cplayer\u2019s coach,\u201d and noted that they share similar intentions with how they approach the game of basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knows what I\u2019m capable of on the offensive end. He\u2019s been pushing me on the defensive end a lot, and it\u2019s been helping me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown Jr. said he ran into Fern\u00e1ndez in the elevator on the way to his interview with Kustok.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both said we can\u2019t wait for tomorrow, to get back on the court and hooping,\u201d Brown Jr. said. \u201cBut yeah, that relationship is great. I mean, he hit me right after the draft when I went to go see my sister, and I came back, and he asked me, \u201cDid did we win? Like, did we win?,\u2019 because it\u2019s like a family. So man, I can\u2019t wait to play for him this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
For those who don\u2019t know, Brown Jr.\u2019s sister, Arianna, is a volleyball player who assumedly had a game that night.<\/p>\n
Brown Jr. and Kustok eventually got into his superlatives. His favorite food is a Sofrito Chicken dish with rice and beans made by his mother. His favorite artist is Michael Jackson, and there really isn\u2019t anyone close. Brown Jr. wasn\u2019t born until 23 years after Thriller came out, but found a way into the pop king\u2019s fandom nonetheless. He couldn\u2019t recall exactly how he got there, but credited his parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t remember as a kid, but I feel like they turned it on on a Sunday. You know, Sunday is cleaning day in the household. So my mama would turn music on on the TV, and I feel like she played Michael Jackson one day, and it has stuck with me ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown Jr. then got into his love of fishing, specifically freshwater. He also touched on his early appreciation for Brooklyn as a borough, and the man who helped bring the Nets there.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrooklyn is a historical like figure, like city. I mean, there\u2019s so many legends that\u2019ve come from there,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of my favorite legends, and arguably my favorite artist besides Michael Jackson, because Michael Jackson\u2019s in another tier, is Jay Z. Jay Z\u2019s from there, and I listen to him a lot. I go back to his lyrics. He says some meaningful things in his music that\u2019s very powerful. So, I mean, just to get the feel for the city, you know, go out, go walk around, and go scope the scenery out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The guard then touched on his video game interests, multi-sport talents, drawing, and cooking capabilities. You can check out the rest conversation below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It only took a matter of seconds for Brooklyn Nets fans to recognize Mikel Brown Jr. as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,32989,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-299092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-nets-podcasts","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}