After greater than two years of deciding to play without an official footwear agreement, Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown has unveiled his own brand, 741, under which he’ll launch the long-awaited first signature shoe of his profession – Rover.

The announcement of Brown’s self-funded and managed brand got here Tuesday after the Celtics’ media day, during which the reigning NBA Finals MVP posed for official team photos in his latest shoes, which he’ll wear throughout the upcoming 2024 NBA season.

“741 is more than just a sneaker brand,” Brown said in an official press release. “It’s a statement – ​​about independence, creativity and ownership.”

The 741 Rover is scheduled to debut on October 22, the same day Boston opens its season against the New York Knicks. According to 741’s official website, adult shoe sizes are priced at $200 per pair, while kid’s sizes are priced at $70.

Brown’s first shoe will make him the NBA’s twenty eighth energetic headliner. The debut shoes signed by Sacramento Kings All-Star point guard De’Aaron Fox (Curry Brand) and three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic (361 degrees) from the Denver Nuggets are expected this season. Brown also becomes a minimum of the ninth player in NBA history to release a signature sneaker under a private or family brand, joining Patrick Ewing (Ewing Athletics, 1989) and Shaquille O’Neal (Dunk.net/Dunkman, 2000-01). and Stephon Marbury (Starbury, 2006).

“Understanding ownership and value is important for the next generation of athletes,” Brown said in the debut press release promoting the 741. “It’s time to create greater value for everyone involved, from athletes to consumers to employees and the communities that support them.” He said , that he “rejected $50 million in offers” from major shoe corporations to realize full ownership and control of creative design inside his own company.

Brown initially endorsed Adidas under the standard player contract he signed as a rookie in 2016 and played until his five-yr contract expired in 2021. In the spring of 2022, Brown made headlines as the first NBA player to sign with Donda Sports , the talent agency founded by music artist and longtime Adidas collaborator Kanye West. The move potentially set the stage for Brown to grow to be the face and debut headliner of Yeezy Basketball’s division until the rapper’s partnership with Adidas abruptly led to October 2022, just before the start of Brown’s breakout seventh NBA season, and Brown has left Donda Sports.

For the past two years, Brown has been wearing Nike sneakers, though he was not officially affiliated with the shoe company. However, in late 2023, he began removing the swoosh from pairs he wore from the late Kobe Bryant’s signature line and pairs from Nike’s GT series. Brown’s creative control over his Nike shoes was likely prompted by a controversial conclusion directed at his former Celtics teammate Kyrie Irving’s long-term cooperation with Nike, which ended before the 2023 NBA season. “Since when does Nike care about ethics?” Brown wrote on X, formerly referred to as Twitter, in response to company founder Phil Knight’s comments about ending his relationship with Irving. Brown’s post has since received greater than 120,000 reposts and likes.

“I’m more inclined to go down this destructive path for tennis players,” Brown said in November 2023 on the show , hosted by longtime NBA veterans Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner. “Many contracts signed by athletes are stationary. Here it’s, cut and dried, with no creative control, no marketing control, but mainly no input.

In early June, as the Celtics reached the 2024 NBA Finals, Brown’s desire to forge his own path in footwear took center stage as he participated in pregame warmups in an unassuming shoe, prompting speculation that it was his upcoming first signature model. However, nobody has been in a position to discover or confirm the brand behind the aesthetically futuristic design.

A number of months later, basketball and sneaker culture found an official answer. After eight seasons in the NBA, one sneaker endorsement and three years of free shoe agency, Brown finally has his own signature shoe, designed for him and by himself, with the freedom and vision of his own brand.

Brown also continues the legacy of NBA players bringing sneakers to market on their own terms. It was founded 35 years ago in 1989, after former Knicks star Ewing left Adidas and a one-yr, $1 million contract to form Ewing Athletics to supply more fuel-efficient, high-performance basketball shoes. Ewing’s sneaker entrepreneurship paved the way for O’Neal’s Dunkman brand at Payless, Marbury’s Starbury line as one of the most fascinating stories in sneaker history, and now Brown has disrupted the modern NBA star footwear landscape.

“I put everything into designing 741,” Brown said, “and it was as challenging and rewarding as anything I did on the court.”

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are individually trying to take care of a way of normalcy after their second public breakup.

The “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” singer filed for divorce in August, and a number of weeks later, the previous couple was spotted together in a hotel with their children. However, plainly the Marvel actor continues to be moving away from her.

Affleck moved out of the home they shared, which was put up on the market in July.

On Wednesday, September 25, paparazzi photographed him leaving a rental property in Brentwood, California, where he had been staying for about two months before announcing his split from Lopez. In July, he finalized the acquisition of a brand new $20 million home in Los Angeles.

The “Daredevil” star was recently seen in photos published by The Daily Mail wearing khaki pants and a green button-down shirt as employees from moving company Wetzel and Sons moved boxes. On one you possibly can see him walking on the road.

The outfit appears, satirically, to be similar to the one Affleck wore in March 2020. He had a much larger, muscular construct then. Green Frank & Eileen shirt later reappeared in April, but this time it was worn by Affleck, then-actress and girlfriend of Ana de Armas.

It’s unclear why Affleck was wearing an analogous T-shirt on moving day or whether it was his favorite.

Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas now share a jersey https://t.co/7gJq9DEZPh pic.twitter.com/4teeyasxpm

– Page six (@pagesiix) May 18, 2020

However, fans seemed a bit concerned about his appearance, noting that he had apparently lost some weight. The 52-year-old’s figure looked noticeably slimmer than usual, and his face also appeared thinner. But for some, there was more concern than praise over his apparent weight reduction.

One person wrote within the comments on Facebook: “He looks sickly.” post depicting images. Another said: “He’s wrong, that’s sad.”

Others reacting to Affleck’s latest look couldn’t help but mention the “Enough” actress.

The third person said: “He looks old. Jlo looks great. It should limit the losses. I don’t understand why gorgeous women like this guy. A fourth said: “He looks higher now, he at all times looked drunk,” misspelling the word “drunk.”

Affleck’s public battle with alcohol began within the early 2000s, including three stints in rehab during his marriage to Jennifer Garner, his ex-wife and mother of his three children. He openly discussed the difficulties of coping with the divorce of his mother and father, whom he described as “alcoholic”

He was 12 years old when his parents split up, but as he grew older, Hollywood friends like Matt Damon and his brother Casey helped him fight each of them.

“I actually have accomplished treatment for alcohol addiction; something I actually have dealt with prior to now and can proceed to deal with. I need to live my life to the fullest and be the very best father I might be,” Affleck wrote Facebook after leaving treatment in 2017. “I want my children to know that there is no shame in asking for help when you need it, and to be a source of strength for anyone who needs help but is afraid to take the first step. ”

He continued: “I am lucky to have the love of my family and friends, including my co-parent Jen, who supported me and took care of our children as I pursued the work I set out to do. This was the first of many steps taken towards a positive economic recovery.”

Two years after their first visit to rehab, Affleck and Lopez began their romance after starring together within the 2003 film “Gigli.”

At the time, Lopez was still married to her then-husband Cris Judd, but she filed for divorce in July 2002, citing irreconcilable differences. In November of the identical yr, she was engaged to Affleck. They postponed their wedding in 2003, and by January 2004, they canceled it altogether as a consequence of the pressure of excessive media attention.

The two parties went their separate ways, married other people and had children, but got back together in 2021 once they each ended their relationships later that yr.

In August 2022, Lopez and Affleck got married in Vegas, followed by a surprise wedding in Georgia a month later.

Everything seemed superb until it wasn’t and by August 2024, Lopez filed for divorce, noting that they’d been separated since April. It looks like the 2 try to maintain peace with one another while living apart.

Down quote podcast host Rachel Lindsay: “It’s been a rough week for the Jacksons.”

September 15 Tito Jackson, founding father of the Jackson 5 died on the age of 70 after a heart attack. September 21 published extensive interview with singer Janet Jackson about motherhood, growing up in such a famous family and the upcoming presidential election in 2024. The artist, who rarely took fans by the side of her legendary velvet rope, made the news after questioning the racial background of presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. This move left many wondering how such a beloved black icon may very well be so out of touch with reality and why he was not held accountable for spreading lies.

When I first heard Jackson say Harris wasn’t black, I immediately dismissed it as one other social media lie. After all, this election season has been filled with bots, misleading memes and disinformation campaigns on X, formerly often called Twitter. So, seeing tweets circulating through which one of the famous black pop stars on the earth disparaged the primary black woman nominated for the best political office within the United States didn’t immediately alarm me. But then I saw the link to the article and skim it myself.

And yes…Janet said that sh….

Asked what she thought about the potential of Harris making history, Jackson replied: “You know what they allegedly said? She’s not black. That’s what I heard. That she is Indian. When a reporter told her Harris was of black and South Asian descent, Jackson replied: “Her father is white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told they discovered her father was white.”

Predictably, Jackson’s comments caused a stir on social media. Both Harris supporters and opponents he gave the singer grace for being flawed or using her words to proceed attacking the vp. co-host Whoopi Goldberg felt that Jackson’s comments were simply a mistake. “Sometimes people make mistakes and are flawed! They made a mistake; they were flawed. “It happens” Goldberg said on the show.

But this will not be a easy “mistake”. Jackson didn’t misspel Harris’s name or discover her running mate. Instead, she repeated a right-wing conspiracy theory that seeks to discredit Harris by questioning her racial identity. As the mother of a biracial child (she has a son with her ex-husband, Qatari business executive Wissam Al Mana) – and aunt to several others – Jackson should know firsthand that Black people will be multiracial and multicolored. And yet, the singer seemed confused about Harris, even after being informed that the Democratic nominee was indeed Black.

Of course, Jackson could easily set the record straight by issuing a statement regarding her comments, but up to now that hasn’t happened. Someone allegedly connected to the singer shared an apology on Jackson’s behalf on Buzzfeed, but Jackson’s camp quickly quashed it by calling out “unauthorized”.

This begs the query: if Jackson’s team can respond so quickly to a false apology, why hasn’t she corrected her erroneous statements about Harris?

Some point to the death of her brother Tito as the rationale for Jackson’s lack of explanation, but while the family continues to grieve, the singer’s representatives still had time to reject the false apology. Others identified her older brother and manager Randy Jackson’s support for right-wing ideas as the rationale why Jackson repeated this plot so easily. Either way, Jackson is an adult who has been a star for most of his life. She’s not a child who doesn’t know higher. After five a long time within the industry, she knows tips on how to cope with public relations mistakes, so her decision to stay silent leads us to an uncomfortable truth: Jackson must either imagine what she said about Harris, or she is totally divorced from the fact and consequences of those statements. elections are for black people.

The Jackson siblings grew up as Jehovah’s Witnesses, a religion that counsels its members to not vote or engage in politics. To that end, Jackson has never been directly involved politically — although she hasn’t campaigned for any candidate she actually expressed her support former President Barack Obama just months into his first term in 2009. Still, she needs to be held accountable for spreading disinformation about Harris and refusing to correct her testimony. We have sued others for similar mistakes, reminiscent of rapper Meek Mill for repeating debunked ideas on Harris as California prosecutor, model Amber Rose for claiming the vp is “giving in to black people” or NFL player Sauce Gardner for being apolitical at a time when the stakes are just too high for Black people. So Jackson shouldn’t be excluded because she is near us. She must be called out – lovingly, after all – because telling a reporter “you heard” that Harris’ dad was white is solely unacceptable, especially in 2024.

To be clear, Jackson doesn’t should get involved in politics. I’d relatively she didn’t try this if she was going to be so ill-informed about the fundamental facts. But while we still love Jackson – and we’ll proceed to follow her in it ongoing fan war with singer-songwriter Justin Timberlake — if she begins to publicly wade into political waters, she’s going to have to do her homework and take control of her voice and voices.