Why Ice Dice stated he’s ‘endlessly grateful’ for Celtics star Jaylen Brown

Celtics

“He’s making a humongous assertion by being the primary present NBA participant to play in a BIG3 recreation.”

Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff
Jaylen Brown answered questions final month on the MIT Media Lab after signing his $300 million contract extension with the Boston Celtics.

  • 76ers’ guard Patrick Beverley doesn’t assume Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown can win a title collectively

  • Watch: Mookie Betts receives standing ovation in his return to Fenway Park

Jaylen Brown signed the richest contract in NBA historical past, helped lead the Celtics on a number of deep playoff runs, and made a pair of NBA All-Star video games.

Now he can add one other accomplishment to his record. Leisure mogul Ice Dice now considers Brown a “hero” after the Celtics star agreed to play within the upcoming BIG3 All-Star recreation.

“Jaylen Brown is my hero,” Cube wrote on Twitter. “He’s making a humongous assertion by being the primary present NBA participant to play in a BIG3 recreation. By suiting up for our All-Star recreation tomorrow, he’s doing all the pieces in his energy to assist the league succeed. Salute. Eternally grateful.”

The BIG3 is a 3-on-3 basketball league that Dice co-founded six years in the past. He’s known as the league considered one of his proudest accomplishments and has been outspoken about each his efforts to develop the league and the NBA’s lack of help for it.

The league’s greatest impediment from a development standpoint is an absence of media protection and sponsorship, Dice instructed Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe.

Having an NBA participant of Brown’s caliber play within the league’s All-Star recreation will possible assist draw publicity to the league.

Dice instructed Boston.com in July that he views the BIG3 as extra of a complimentary piece that would assist the NBA, as a substitute of a competitor.

“We’re doing issues to alter the sport,” Dice stated. “They will all the time use us as a novel experiment with new guidelines and know-how, issues that they might need to check out that they aren’t able to implement into the NBA but.”

Dice stated he didn’t envision himself founding a basketball league for a very long time. However, as a fan of the sport, he observed gamers who have been now not on NBA rosters that he wished to see keep related to the sport in some kind or trend. So, he created the league as an avenue for them.

“It’s setting the stage for a few of my heroes. Particularly, the coaches,” Dice stated in July. “It’s nice to have the ability to do this, to have the ability to put them again the place they belong in heated competitors. To me, that’s one thing that I’m not used to doing. I’m used to setting the desk for myself by means of films or music or no matter. However, with the ability to set the stage for a few of my heroes like Dr. J., the Iceman, Rick Barry, and people guys could be very satisfying.”