Jaylen Brown: More than enough in Year 8.
- Thread starter MyDaughterLovesTomGordon
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For the shot of course. But also for the block and save on Nesmith; forcing the turnover on the inbounds when all hope was lost; and ripping the ball and Siakam's soul from Siakam with 40 seconds left in OT and the Celts clinging to a 4 point lead.
The degree to which Jaylen has grown at both ends---last night, but also consdiering the offensive explosion last year and this year's growing all-defense support, is really impressive.
JT and JB are so close to their top 10% projection, if you went back five years, it's impressive and speaks well of both of them
JT and JB are so close to their top 10% projection, if you went back five years, it's impressive and speaks well of both of them
IMO, this postseason has proven that he's a top 30 guy at the least. He's improved so much, and his weaknesses are much less exploitable in the playoffs than the other people who are generally considered in his tier (Sabonis/Fox/Lillard).
We are extremely lucky to have the Jay's
The Cs social media team is among the best in the business.
View: https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1793378966692413719
View: https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1793378966692413719
I am so, so glad that different server crashes over the years have destroyed the posts where I put up a scathing scouting report of his one year at Berkeley... "low BBIQ"... "Guy who relies on straight line drives"... "What will he do once he no longer has a huge athletic advantage"... yadda yadda
The guy deserves 100% of the credit for what he's turned into
A few years ago LeBron called him 'under-rated'. He's both so much better, and might still be...
The guy deserves 100% of the credit for what he's turned into
A few years ago LeBron called him 'under-rated'. He's both so much better, and might still be...
Haliburton is a brutal defender and was not very good for the last 3+ months of the year, post injury. Sabonis vs. Haliburton, I dunno.
He played hurt, but he still ended up averaging 20/11 on a 61% TS. Advanced stats love him too, even with the poor defense.
Sabonis is a DHO merchant who gets exposed against any good defense. I mean I get that he puts up numbers, but meh. I think it’s mostly that after the top 10-15 players, the next 10-15 are all pretty interchangeable.
I thought Jaylen was going to make it, but he will just use it as motivation.
Sabonis also is a defensive sieve who can’t protect the rim. I get that this is a regular season award but some consideration should be made to the fact that Sabonis gets exposed pretty easily in the playoffs
Ask every GM in the league who they’d rather have for a playoff run, and I’d be shocked if at least 3/4th of them didn’t say Jaylen.
Honestly, I’d go more than 3/4ths.
It’s really goddamn tough to win in the playoffs with a player like Sabonis. You basically have to have the absolutely perfect roster construction (that includes a complete unicorn like Wemby)
Jaylen over several other players last year was a bit of a joke, too, but him needing it for his supermax got some extra votes. On the last couple of close-calls, where you're not wrong to vote him in, and wouldn't be wrong to exclude him either, that sort of stuff seems to matter. And this year, Haliburton got it so that he can get HIS 30%-max. He signed an extension last year whose compensation was conditional on his performance this year: if he met the criteria (i.e., all-nba) he would get a bump from 25% to 30% of the cap on the remainder of his contract, but he only had this year to meet the criteria. So that vote was worth about $40M to him, whereas it would've meant nothing to Jaylen.
There were no "several other players" last season that deserved All-NBA over Jaylen Brown.
Really? Booker is underrated as a defender imo, and the playmaking gap is pretty big. I think the general Phoenix dysfunction has made him look worse.
I'd drive JB to the airport, and I love JB.
As anyone who has been reading this forum for any amount of time knows, I love JB. I mean, I am on the senior leadership team of his fanclub here....
But, I would strongly consider trading him for Booker. (The list of players I would trade him for is not very long, maybe like 10-15 and that list sure as shit does not contain Domatas Sabonis)
I think a lot of the writers realized it meant more money for Haliburton so they voted for Haliburton even if he wasn't quite there (probably did the same for Brown last year). The NBA writers unlike Baseball writers do actually care for the players and are willing to do a favor like that.
I would take Booker over Brown but not Haliburton over Brown for this team. Haliburton is great but he would be relentlessly hunted on this team in rotations.
Anyone saying this has to contend with the fact that every single advanced stat system thinks Jaylen is like #40-50 in the league, not top-15. And understand why (chiefly his defense), and make a case for why those systems are wrong. "but I can see him dunk on fools!" isn't really a great argument as to why he had a better 2022-23 than, say, Ja Morant, Julius Randle, Jrue Holiday (!), Lauri Markkanen, Kevin Durant, or even Ant Edwards.
Brown finished 4th among Forwards last year, in the last year of position-full voting, behind only Giannis, Tatum and Butler, and ahead of Randle, Lebron, and then Markkanen and Durant. He also could've been considered a guard, in which case his voting points would have put him 5th, ahead of Fox, Lillard, Ja, Jrue and Brunson (who I'll grant had a much better 23-24 than 22-23). Any of those would have been reasonable for voters to put ahead of Jaylen Brown imo. But they didn't, and one of the reasons was how much it would affect his contract, whereas it wouldn't have affected anything for any of the other contenders.
The All-NBA thing was litigated pretty thoroughly last year. In the end, even though there were a few dissenters, the majority of the board agreed that he deserved All-NBA
I do think the max contract had something to do with it, I just don't think it was a MASSIVE factor.
Ja Morant had the controversy last year, he wasn't getting All NBA. Julius Randle did make All-NBA, just third team instead of 2nd. Both Markkanen and Durant missed a good amount of games (Markkanen basically was sat out right before people were voting).
Holiday (and for that matter Morant) aren't really applicable because, as you noted, they were guards and Jaylen was voted in as a forward
I do think the max contract had something to do with it, I just don't think it was a MASSIVE factor.
Ja Morant had the controversy last year, he wasn't getting All NBA. Julius Randle did make All-NBA, just third team instead of 2nd. Both Markkanen and Durant missed a good amount of games (Markkanen basically was sat out right before people were voting).
Holiday (and for that matter Morant) aren't really applicable because, as you noted, they were guards and Jaylen was voted in as a forward
Vote breakdown is here:
View: https://twitter.com/NBAPR/status/1793430330113654910
Essentially, the writers think JB is #16 in the league, which I think is about right. Seeing him right ahead of Paul George I think is a reminder that there are a LOT of great players in the league right now.
View: https://twitter.com/NBAPR/status/1793430330113654910
Essentially, the writers think JB is #16 in the league, which I think is about right. Seeing him right ahead of Paul George I think is a reminder that there are a LOT of great players in the league right now.
In all sports I’m a build the defense first guy and think JB’s defense is underrated. I will admit to not seeing as much of Booker as you two but I have not been impressed with his defensive effort. Maybe he’s a turn it on when needed guy and I’ve missed that. Also like that JB is the same age as Booker and has a shit ton more success up to now and still some room to grow. Would be interesting to see what opinions are 2 years from now.
The amount of high level talent in the NBA is ridiculous.
One other point about rankings is that if you are doing it on a good faith basis, its dynamic. For some matchups you might prefer the person you have listed at 16 versus the player at 11 or 12.
There are bunch of guys in the "others receiving votes" list that I'd have on third team before Sabonis: Brown, Wemby, Maxey at least. I'd have all three of those guys over Haliburton too, but I don't have an issue with him on third team overall. Him getting his bag is a nice story. I had to expand DARKO to 100 players to even see Sabonis. He's a counting stats machine who played gobs of minutes, and he does deserve credit for that. But top15 player in the league--even qualified by minimum playing requirements--that's a joke. He's a top15 big, sure.
Booker's overall game is better than Brown's but Brown is infinitely more healthy which you could argue make Brown is more valuable
Booker's averaged 66.4 games/season in his career to JB's 67.5. Minutes/season are 2261 vs 2038 in favor or Booker. What am I missing here?
Recency bias. Booker also came in as a starter by his first year where Brown wasn't a full time starter until the Bubble Season.
The league is loaded compared to the 90s. I was looking and Anthony Mason made the All NBA team during Jordan's 2nd three peat.
Booker gets run into the ground when he is healthy. There are many areas where you can complain about Mazzulla one thing he did exceptionally well was maintain usage properly during the regular season.
Yeah I thought of that but eyeballing, it didn't seem to make a huge difference. And the numbers confirm- if you only include JB"s year's since he became a full time starter (I'll start at 2019-20 and just to be generous I'll discount 17-18 even though he started every game he played, since he only averaged 30/mpg that year) Booker still averages more minutes/season. 2261 vs 2180.
I think the last two years Booker has been playing through injuries in the playoffs. That won't bear out in what you see just looking at minutes but it makes those minutes less effective
(I don't think Booker is particularly injury prone just pointing out the flaw in only looking at minutes)
His career playoff averages- 28/5/5.3 on 48.6/38.9/89.9 shooting. That's in 40 mpg. Regular season- 24.3/4/5 on 51.4/35.7/87 in 36 mpg.
Eyeballing his last two years, he's been very very good in his last two playoff runs, in heavy minutes.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bookede01.html#playoffs-series
His usage is awful. The whole more minutes per a game thing take keeps being pointed out is a bug not a feature. The Durant trade wasn't great in retrospect but the Beal trade was ... it was so bad.
I think my point is Booker has been pressed into an impossible situation where he is in his prime with two aging all stars and a very weak supporting cast with no consistency on team make up or coaching. Each coach increasingly uses him as a crutch to avoid the team's structural problems wearing him down. He has so many more miles on him than Brown and they are six days apart in age.
I've posted this here before so I am repeating myself but..they were both bad trades. If what Stephen A is saying about KD is true and he already wants out of PHX, then it could be a horrifically bad trade.
One of my best friends lives in PHX and is a diehard Suns fan. According to him, Mikal and Cam Johnson were absolutely beloved out there. I think they played like a 3 minute long appreciation video when the Nets played the Suns last year? That seemed like a trade where the new owner, who coincidentally is really good friends with Isiah Thomas? What can go wrong there?, just saw the name Durant and thought it had to be done.
It's funny looking at the DARKO graphs of Jaylen and Devin side by side. Aside from Jaylen's bad run of about 50 games to end last year and begin this one, they're practically a fucking overlay.
Yeah, I saw that, it's uncanny. I'm taking JB, but mostly because he's a lot cooler and I like rooting for him.
The issue was Ayton not Bridges and Johnson. I wonder if they had shipped out Ayton for KP instead and went with Pyne, Booker, Bridges, Cam Johnson, Porzingis with Paul coming off the bench, how good that team would have been. Probably a home series.
JB on what he thinks about All-NBA teams: “Honestly we are two games away from the Finals… I’m too busy to give a fuck.”
