Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown has proud former coaches: Cuonzo Martin, Doug Lipscomb

As basketball lifers, Doug Lipscomb and Cuonzo Martin have been enjoying this NBA postseason. In particular, they have been enjoying the performance of a prized student they have in common: Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown.

Lipscomb, 62, coached Brown for four years at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, where Brown helped Lipscomb win one of his six state titles. As the head coach at California, Martin helped convince Brown and his family to leave Georgia and travel west.

During Game 1 of the NBA Finals on June 7 against the Dallas Mavericks, they watched Brown turn in a dominating performance of 22 points, 3 blocks and 3 steals in a 107-89 Celtics victory. In Game 2 on Tuesday, Brown was solid, scoring 21 points and putting the game away with a rip-roaring dunk that sealed a 105-98 victory.

On Wednesday, Brown — in the running for Finals MVP — was magnificent, scoring 24 of his 30 points in the second half as Boston defeated Dallas 106-99 in Game 3.

“Oh, man, it just brings me joy, it just makes me feel good to see him doing his thing,” said Martin, who is the coach at Missouri State University. “He was determined to be good and deep down inside he wants to be the best player in that league. He wants to be a first-team all-league guy because that’s what drives him.”

But for Brown’s two former coaches, the most exhilarating aspect of the journey has been the growth and maturity of a young man they have known since he was 14 years old.

Lipscomb and Martin were part of a sprawling village headed by Brown’s mother that has carried Brown to an important port in his NBA career.

“I’ll be the first person to tell you that the development of Jaylen Brown while he was at Wheeler was a total community involvement,” Lipscomb said during a recent phone interview. “From his mother, to his AAU coaches, trainer, everybody.”

Under Lipscomb, Wheeler produced a number of big-time college and professional players, beginning with Shareef Abdur-Rahim, who played 12 NBA seasons and who is G League president.

More significantly, Brown became part of a Wheeler tradition that emphasized character, citizenship, activism and being an asset to one’s community. Lipscomb used his former players as role models for younger players. Now, Brown is one of those players.

He helped mentor guard Isaiah Collier. a freshman at USC who is expected to be a first-round pick in the upcoming NBA draft.

“When you can put positive pictures in front of people and those people come around, say like a Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Jelan Kendrick, you put McDonald’s All Americans in front of those kids and they say, ‘Well, I need my name in that trophy case and with a McDonald’s All American jersey on,’ ” Lipscomb said.

Brown was part of a blueprint that not only emphasized what players did on the basketball court but how they performed in the classroom, what type of assets they were in the community and how they fit into the tradition of African Americans helping other African Americans.

“Jaylen’s parents and his family were pushing him just as well as everybody else in our program,” Lipscomb said. “It’s that philosophy, it takes a community to raise a child.”

What’s been most gratifying for Lipscomb about Brown is the work he has put into helping underserved communities in Atlanta and Boston.

“If you put people in situations where they have an opportunity to give and help others, then they can do it, and they do it,” Lipscomb said. “That makes me feel good about somebody that was around me because that’s the way we’re built, to help other people.”

Brown led Wheeler to a state title in his senior year. Despite being heavily recruited by traditional powers Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Brown followed Abdur-Rahim and selected California.

​“So, Cal-Berkeley is a whole different monster,” Lipscomb said. “You can be independent, you learn to be independent, more, you can speak your mind. It has a very good history of being able to cultivate being a strong Black man.”

Martin was in his second season at California when Brown arrived on campus. Although Martin recruited Brown to Cal, the two first met when Brown was 14 and Martin was the coach at Tennessee.

What impressed Martin during the recruiting process was Brown’s maturity and focus. “I think a lot of young student-athletes, in all of sports, can really learn from him,” Martin said.

“He really understood what he was looking for. He was in control of the recruitment. He stayed the course. He took ownership of it and he was in the driver’s seat.”

Cal’s timing in the recruitment of Brown was perfect. Martin said that in the era of name, image and likeness, when stars athletes have the leverage, Brown may have been beyond Cal’s reach.

“Berkeley’s a wonderful institution, but I’m not sure they had enough money to get a guy like that,” Martin said. “We would have had to go down south to San Francisco to get loans because he was that caliber of talent. I’m not saying he would’ve shunned Cal-Berkeley, but that would’ve been extremely hard just because Cal prides themself more in the academic piece as opposed to the athletics at that time. That would have been extremely hard.”

​Brown stayed one season at Cal and when he left, Martin wasn’t surprised.

“Not at all,” Martin said. “You knew he was going to be a top-10 pick.”

Martin said he gave Brown one piece of advice: “Continue to stay who you are. Continue to grow and continue to keep the same team around you because his mom is one of the main core people in his life and she’s done a great job of protecting her children,” Martin said.

Although they have not spoken in several years, Martin has closely followed Brown’s career on and off the court and believes he should be one of the faces of the NBA.

“They always talk about the face of the league based on the guy’s production on the court, but he might lack character in so many other areas. Well, here’s the guy that’s clicking on all cylinders,” Martin said.

“He exemplifies everything you want in a guy: He puts his hard hat on the court, and he’s in the community off the court. He’s a high-level guy, he stays out of harm’s way, his character is intact, his integrity is intact, all those things you want.”

Martin also said the trait he admires most in Brown is humility. That is not the first trait many would associate with Brown but Martin believes that the way Brown presents humility is one of his superpowers.

“I try to explain to young guys when I use the word, humility, it doesn’t mean weakness,” Martin said. “I think his humility is a powerful strength. He speaks his mind. He understands who he is. He’s not apologizing for who he is as a confident, strong Black man that really speaks on Black growth, Black development. The man was raised in Atlanta. So that’s in him. His family did a great job.”

Humility also does not mean lack of confidence. After Mavericks coach Jason Kidd sparked a firestorm by saying between Finals games 1 and 2 that Brown was the Celtics’ best player, Martin talked about the thin line he believes Brown has had to walk on a championship-caliber Celtics team.

“Jaylen’s going to do what he needs to do to be successful and win the game,” Martin said. “He’s going to play the game from start to finish. He’s going to do the best job he can to win the game. He’s not afraid to guard whoever the best player is. He’ll embrace that challenge. He’s going to play his game, he’s going to shoot, he’s going to do all those things. But you also have to understand that the Jaylen that I know is not a guy that’s thinking he’s the second or third option. His mind can’t comprehend that.

“I would say for the last three or four years, he’s heard that, ‘Second guy on the team.’ After a while it’s like, ‘Man, let me show that I’m the guy because I feel like I’m the guy. Nothing against my partner, because he’s a wonderful player. That don’t mean he’s not a great one, but I feel like I’m a great.’ ”

For the two coaches who know Brown, his mentality is that there can be two great players and they can co-exist. The Game 3 performances of Brown and Jayson Tatum were case in point. Brown scored 30 points and had 8 assists, Tatum score 31 points and handed out 5 assists.

“We can have two great ones on the team,” Martin said. “Who said there can’t be two Batmans on the team?”

Indeed, one of the greatest lessons Brown learned from Lipscomb at Wheeler is that when the team wins everyone wins. When someone in the community wins, the entire community wins.

Coaches have books filled with slogans. Lipscomb said that his favorite is one that he drilled into all of his players, especially the stars. It’s a mentality of sharing and giving that Brown has carried with him into the NBA:

There’s enough sun for everybody to get some.