The NBA All-Star is keeping that same energy when it comes to supporting the current crop of NBA rookies. Brown, who has his own brand, 7uice, is now venturing into art collecting and wants to educate players coming into the League on the value of investing through art. 

Working alongside creative legend Set Free Richardson, they’ve set out to gift rookies with art pieces that, in time, will appreciate in value. The two met up with Portland Trail Blazers guard and fellow Marietta native Scoot Henderson during NBA Summer League in Vegas and presented him a hand-signed print by award-winning painter and one of Brown’s favorite artists Rafa Macarrón at the Rookie 1 Party. The piece, which is worth over 20k, was acquired from Lio Malca’s Gallery 60 White. 

“A good amount of our players are current art collectors,” Brown tells SLAM. “I’m currently growing my art collection and looking forward to learning more about art and all its capacities. As I learn and grow, I plan on sharing that learning process with the world, as well as my NBA counterparts.” 

Macarrón, a self-taught artist from Madrid, Spain, has a personal style that’s inspired by dreams and childhood. The piece gifted to Henderson is both eclectic and interesting as it is playful, and features pastel colors and uniquely drawn figures. It perfectly connects with Henderson’s own creativity, too, as the SLAM 244 cover star is also interested in art and fashion. 

Now, thanks to Brown and Richardson, he has his own very limited-edition piece to take with him to his new home in Portland. Scoot is just the first of many rookies Brown and Richardson plan on gifting art pieces to, including Victor Wembanyama and Brandon Miller.

“Hopefully in time the piece will grow in value and art collecting will become a great hobby that [they] will learn to love and appreciate,” Brown adds.  

Photos courtesy of Set Free Richardson.

The post Jaylen Brown and Set Free Richardson Want to Educate NBA Rookies on the Value of  Investing Through Art  appeared first on SLAM.

Seeing is believing, and artist Troy Murray, who goes by the name TYP, has created just that and more: his latest work, titled “Rhetorical Question” depicts a realistic portrait of the NBA legend and even features sculpted Reebok Questions that were molded and casted from the actual kicks. 

When the Detroit-native pulls up to our office in Long Island City, he reveals that his artwork represents his early childhood memories of watching Iverson, who was his favorite player growing up, and begging his parents to buy him his own pair of kicks. He also got a subscription to SLAM when he was 12, and would keep issues on his bedside table. 

“Everybody has this memory of that AI cover,” TYP says. “Anybody that loves basketball has a memory. I was able to tell my version of the memory through that piece.” 

TYP says it takes him about two weeks to create each piece. He begins by sketching the portrait on Procreate to get an idea of the color scheme and textures he wants to incorporate. When it’s time to build the sculpture, he starts by creating the shape of the piece using foam and wood, and then sprays a light layer of concrete on top. To give it that rocky, aged-look, he casts and molds different elements of the piece, like the sneakers, out of a clay that hardens into a proxy, and then sands it down.

Shop Allen Iverson SLAM Cover Tees here.

His journey into developing his own distinct style started with a different pair of kicks, the Jordan 1s. After focusing primarily on drawing portraits, he wanted to explore an entirely new medium when he picked up a sneaker box one day. “I just saw how [the Jordan 1s] were sitting in there, and I just thought that if I just pattern those in the right way they could make a pretty relatively even painting surface for me. So I tried it and it worked.”

He would take pairs of kicks and quite literally cut them in half to use in his artwork. Yes, you read that right. “That original one, we were like, this is kind of crazy. We were just cutting these sneakers in half, but once we did it once [and] we cut one sneaker and started to actually piece it together and pattern it we were like, this is so dope. This is gonna work.” 

Eventually though, TYP’s friend Anthony let him know that instead of cutting them up, he could just mold them and replicate as many pairs as he wanted. Learning the entire molding and casting process, put things into perspective that he could now create his art on an even larger scale. 

By turning a real SLAM cover into a real-life sculpture, TYP has captured the very epitome of how art, basketball, history and human connection all intersect. .“I wanted to play off of the question and the answer here. I always thought that was so cool as a kid that he had a sneaker. That was the Question, the nickname was The Answer. And so the name of the piece was a Rhetorical Question. And the whole narrative was based around this, he’s always been the answer.”

Photos by Marcus Stevens.

The post Artist TYP Reimagines Iconic SLAM Allen Iverson Cover with ‘Rhetorical Question’ Sculpture appeared first on SLAM.