An Australian Paralympics great is tipping a Victorian teenager will “blow people’s minds” in Paris.
Jaylen Brown, a 19-year-old from Warrnambool, shares the same name as the reigning NBA Finals MVP from the Boston Celtics.
He also shares his skill for swishing a ball through a net as perhaps Australia’s most exciting young wheelchair basketball player.
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Brown, the nephew of AFL great Jonathan, is one of six Paralympic debutants in the Rollers squad shooting for gold in France.
“They’ve got some really exciting new young players,” Liesl Tesch, a Paralympian who won medals across two sports, told Stan Sport’s Paralympics Daily.
“Jaylen is just just this rocket ship – he’s going to blow people’s minds.”
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Tesch should be a pretty good judge.
The now 55-year-old politician won silver medals in wheelchair basketball at the Sydney and Athens Paralympics and then a bronze in Beijing.
Tesch then took on a new challenge by switching to sailing and promptly claimed Paralympics gold in London and Rio de Janeiro.
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Brown, meanwhile, was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency and had a leg amputation when he was two.
His mother Louise played in the Women’s National Basketball League and Brown took up the wheelchair version of the sport aged seven.
The Rollers lost to hosts Japan at the quarter-finals of the last Paralympics and are now coached by former gold medallist Brad Ness.
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Australia’s Group B opener is against the Netherlands on Friday (5.30am AEST) before backing up against Spain (8.45pm AEST).
“They’ve had some success overseas but come into a really hard draw,” Tesch said.
“It’s two separate days in Paris but that’s a very quick overnight turnaround. The Netherlands, who are a really tough team and then Spain who won the gold medal at the last Paralympics.
“We’ve got it in us. They’re just off the back of a great national league season in Australia and I believe they can get onto that podium.
“USA is in our group as well so we’ve got the toughest pool. It could be anyone’s medal and it could be the Rollers’ medal. The men’s game has gone to another level again and it’s going to blow everybody’s minds.”
Rollers captain Tristan Knowles, 41, and Shaun Norris, 39, will represent their country at a sixth Paralympics in Paris.
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The pair join the legendary Richard Oliver as the only Rollers to achieve the feat.
“I think we’re playing a really exciting brand of basketball and one that’s going to challenge our opponents,” Ness said.
“I think having those six debutants in is going to help us because they don’t know any different, they know this style of play and I think it can work in our favour.”
Rollers squad: Tristan Knowles (c), Sam White, Frank Pinder, Jannik Blair, Eithen Leard, Phil Evans, Luke Pople, Shaun Norris, Tom O’Neill-Thorne, Bill Latham, Jaylen Brown, Tom McHugh
Australian great Liesl Tesch will appear as an expert on Stan Sport’s Paralympics Daily shows throughout Paris 2024
