Y.O.U.TH #BooksNotBarsOR

Jaylen Brown says he used the NBA Players Association instead of hiring an agent for the NBA Draft because they're paid to help players “When I entered the draft, I didn't have an agent. I'm probably the highest picked selected ever that didn't enter with an agent. When I was evaluating, I went through the whole process and sat with a bunch of people, and what they was offering I ain't really need. It was kind of already slotted, so I leaned on the union a lot more” “A lot of the agents came and was like, ‘Yeah, we'll move you to L.A. We'll get you a trainer, put some money in your pocket,’ and I was like, ‘For what? Do I gotta give the money back?’ They was like, ‘Nah, but standard agent fee is 4%.’ I'm starting to do the math, and a house, car, and all that, whatever he was offering, is a lot less than what 4% would have been” “Long story short, the math wasn't mathing for me. I ended up being the third pick. I think because I came in like that, a lot of people, I think it was the agents, they tried to slander my name a little bit, put it in the media that he's too this, he's too that. Ended up backfiring. It all worked out in the end” “With the union, we pay dues. All the players in the NBA pay dues. We all pay like $10,000 out of our salary that goes to hiring lawyers, hiring staff, CEO, everything that you need to lead a company that works for us. So all of that is our resources that we all pay for, that we agree to. Once I learned that, I just started using it” “I'm talking about you can get private investigations done. They give referrals for financial advisors. All type of stuff. Foundation wise, health insurance, whatever you need. They have a liaison that's paid to make sure that you get it done. So I put it on their desk like, ‘I need you to get this done.’ And they do because that's their job”

Draymond Green says basketball is no longer a poor kid's game: “It's a rich kid's game” “I didn't learn how to do a proper individual workout till I got to college. Growing up I'm going to hoop. Where's the nearest run. Drop me off, I'll play all day. That's what we did. We hooped all day. I think there's a huge benefit to that because you just learn to see the game” “It's different when somebody just putting you in a position to tell you to do this move. How do you use your creativity? How do you learn if somebody just say do this? How do you know what your game is if you never tap into it and just figure it out” “I think there's a time and place for a trainer and I think with where the game has gone, you need those resources in order to be successful” “I feel like basketball used to be a poor man's game. Poor kids played it. We were poor. We had nothing and it was our way out. Basketball is not a poor kid's game no more. Basketball is a rich kid game” “The days of seeing LeBron James from Akron, Ohio, from a single mom, those days are numbered. Because if you don't have the resources these days, you can't make it. But that’s also why you don't see as great basketball as you did before, because there's no imagination” “Everybody's doing the same thing, playing the same way. I think a lot of that is due sometimes to having trainers. You just become a carbon copy of somebody else the trainer created”