Ben Tudhope
Learn More
Shortly before the Australian Rollers men’s wheelchair basketball team was due to compete at the Paris Paralympics in 2024, Jaylen Brown was dropped from the squad and seemingly destined to miss selection for the biggest of all tournaments.
It stung. A lot. But it didn’t deter him.
Brown responded by chasing an opportunity to play in Italy, training twice a day and testing himself in games against some of the best players on the planet. Back home, he joined the Darwin Salties in the National Wheelchair Basketball League. He kept playing, kept working and, before long, Paris was somehow back in the picture.
By the time the Rollers departed for the Paralympic Games, Brown was going with them, a rise Head Coach Brad Ness described as “unbelievable”.
Yet, that was just the entrée. Two years later, at the 2026 World Championships, Brown went to a new level altogether, catapulting the Rollers to their third world title and first in more than a decade. He was exceptional, scoring 28 points in the final at a successful field goal percentage of 72.2 percentage, and was later named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
The biggest thing is that we won it together as a team. It’s something I’ll remember for a long time.
Brown responded with typical humility.
“Being named MVP was obviously a really nice way to finish the tournament, but it never would have happened without the rest of the boys around me,” he said.
“Everyone played their role and contributed throughout the tournament, which made my role easier. The biggest thing is that we won it together as a team. It’s something I’ll remember for a long time.”
Brown was introduced to basketball through his mother’s involvement in the sport. As a leg amputee from the age of two, it may have seemed unintuitive. Yet, over the years, he has made the basketball wheelchair his own zone of influence, transferring a lifetime of defying expectations into becoming one of the world’s best players in one of the Paralympic Games’ flagship sports.
There is so much more to come.
“We’ve got a really exciting group,” Brown said. “So hopefully we can keep building on this and put ourselves in the best possible position heading into LA.”
