Jaylen Brown’s offseason boxing detour has Philadelphia 76ers fans looking at the calendar a little differently.
Brown recently stepped into a sparring session in front of a crowd in Nigeria, and the clip spread quickly enough to get people talking for reasons that had nothing to do with footwork. For a fan base that has seen plenty of health trouble over the years, especially in the Joel Embiid era, the sight of an active NBA star mixing it up in the ring naturally set off some nerves.
The good news is that Brown appears to have come through it fine. It was only a sparring session, and with training camp approaching for the Sixers, that’s about all anyone around Philadelphia wants this boxing experiment to amount to.
Brown, 29, is in a very different place in his career than most players who take these kinds of side trips. He entered the NBA out of California in 2016 as the No. 3 pick by the Boston Celtics, and Boston is still the only team he has known. He has played all 674 of his games with the franchise and was part of the title-winning group in the 2023-2024 NBA season.
Health has generally been one of Brown’s strengths. In all but three seasons, he has reached at least 65 games, and he came up just two short of that mark in 2024-2025. Last season, he was back on the floor for 71 games and put together an MVP-caliber run while Jayson Tatum was sidelined, averaging 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists.
That reliability is exactly what makes him so appealing to Philadelphia. The Sixers have spent the past two seasons dealing with the availability issues of Joel Embiid and Paul George, and with Brown replacing George, they’re counting on an MVP-level player who can be on the court for around 70 regular-season games.
He survived the ring this time. Now the question is whether he can keep avoiding bad luck when the games actually count.
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