Sep 24, 2023 5 min read

Falling Back in Love with Jaylen Brown

The Celtics are lucky to have Jaylen Brown. (Image credit: Celtics Blog)

When we last saw Jaylen Brown in a professional basketball game, things didn't go as planned. He committed eight turnovers in a game I would still posit that the Celtics lost more than the Heat won. Which is what made it hurt all the more. If Brown, Jayson Tatum or Malcolm Brogdon had played to their standards, the Celtics would have probably won that game and moved on. Only Caleb Martin really had it going for Miami in that Game 7.

In the immediate aftermath, and honestly, for about a month or so afterward, it was hard to remember why I liked Jaylen Brown to begin with. That was obviously a ridiculous notion, especially since he played the whole playoffs with a hurt finger, and I have tried to tell myself that the Celtics losing that game was merciful in the end, and to try to remember why I love Jaylen Brown.

Let's step back and look at the big picture a little bit. First, you have to remember that Jaylen Brown is already putting himself in elite company. Take the All-Star team. In the 26 seasons of my adult life, (1997-1998 to the present), there have only been nine Celtics to make multiple All-Star teams. Brown is one of them:

Paul Pierce: 10 times
Kevin Garnett: 4
Rajon Rondo: 4
Jayson Tatum: 4
Ray Allen: 3
Antoine Walker: 3
Jaylen Brown: 2
Kyrie Irving: 2
Isaiah Thomas: 2

In that same time span, there have been even fewer Celtics to make the All-NBA team:

Paul Pierce (4 times): 2002, 2003, 2008, 2009
Jayson Tatum (3): 2020, 2022, 2023
Jaylen Brown: 2023
Kevin Garnett: 2008
Kyrie Irving: 2019
Rajon Rondo: 2012
Isaiah Thomas: 2017

Seven players in 26 seasons. That's one-third of Celtics history. Jaylen Brown has already accomplished something in a Celtics uniform that few have.

Let's switch things up and look at the playoffs instead. You don't need me to tell you that Brown was a big part of one of just three Celtics squads to reach the NBA Finals since 1987. But when I was looking around recently on his Basketball-Reference page, I found something even more interesting. Brown is now 72nd in NBA history in total playoffs points scored, and 100th all-time in total defensive rebounds. He has now scored more points in the playoffs than Oscar Robertson, Joe Dumars, Damian Lillard, Chris Webber, and Dominique Wilkins. And he's pulled down more defensive rebounds than Bill Cartwright, Bam Adebayo, Tom Chambers, Detlef Schrempf, and Bill Walton.

Of course, you could make a very valid argument that today's NBA players play more playoff games, so I took a look at the per game averages as well. And while he isn't as high there, he is there. He ranks 117th all-time in NBA playoff history in points per game, at 18.2, just behind Blake Griffin at 18.21, and just ahead of Garnett 18.19. For some reason, Basketball-Reference tracks total postseason defensive rebounds but not defensive rebounds per game. At 5.5 total rebounds per game in the playoffs, Brown falls just outside of the top 250 all-time, but I am confident he'll crack that list following this upcoming season.

Brown's averages are weighted down by his relative lack of playing time and usage in his first three playoff runs, as opposed to last three:

In his past three seasons of playoffs, Brown has been incredible. He's matched the shooting performance from the field even with a much higher usage – he essentially has shot twice as often during the latter span. In that time, he's also dramatically improved his rebounding and assists and free throw percentage, and slightly improved his efficiency with the ball. His assist-to-turnover ratio went from 0.96 to 1.06.

That 1.06, I think, is a victim of context. Many people, myself chief among them, have whined about Brown's turnovers, both during the regular season and the playoffs. But do you know what Paul Pierce's postseason assist-to-turnover ratio was through his age-26 season? 1.10. That includes his performance in the 2002 Conference Finals against the Nets, when he had 23 assists and 21 turnovers. And while perhaps I'm misremembering, I don't remember anyone ever complaining about Pierce's turnovers. I believe Brown gets graded on a different curve in this regard because of Jayson Tatum, whose efficiency with the ball has simply advanced faster than has Brown's.

In the regular season, we can point to several things that Brown is still improving upon. In the 2022-23 regular season, he set career highs or bests in several categories on a per-game basis:

35.9 minutes (34.5 was his prior best)
10.1 field goals made (9.3)
20.6 field goals attempted (19.2)
.491 field goal percentage (.484)
7.3 three-pointers attempted (7.1)
7.7 two-pointers made (6.5)
13.4 two-pointers attempted (12.1)
.576 two-point percentage (.544)
3.9 free throws made (3.7)
5.1 free throws attempted (4.8)
.765 free throw percentage (.764)
5.7 defensive rebounds (5.3)
6.9 total rebounds (6.1)
26.6 points (24.7)

It wasn't just per game, he also set plenty of career bests on a totals level, most notably in minutes played. Was it Jaylen's best season overall? I don't think we can say that definitively, but the point is that he is still growing as a player.

Jaylen Brown is far from a perfect player. As he takes more three's, his efficiency hitting them has waned. He still consistently makes careless plays that you would think a player of his experience would have grown out of, his defensive effort waxes and wanes, and in general his game just is defined by bulk moreso than efficiency. But he's still the rarest of rare players.

The Celtics have played 77 seasons. In that time, 504 players have worn the Celtic green for at least one game. Of them, only seven have ever averaged 25 points and five rebounds per game for a full season: Larry Bird (four times), John Havlicek (2x), Sam Jones, Kevin McHale, Paul Pierce (5x), Jayson Tatum (3x), and Brown. If you lower the threshold to 20 points per game, you add another nine players: Bob Cousy, Dave Cowens, Tom Heinsohn, Bailey Howell, Kyrie Irving, Ed Macauley, Bob McAdoo, Antoine Walker, and Jo Jo White. These are some of the greatest players in team history. Ten of the 16 have their numbers in the rafters.

Jaylen Brown isn't the best player on his team, and so the complaints will always come faster when he isn't performing his best. Kevin McHale, Scottie Pippen, James Worthy, and Klay Thompson can probably relate. I'm guilty of it as much, if not more, than anyone else. I am far more deferential to Jayson Tatum's failings, because he's the best player on the team. But the C's are still very lucky to have Jaylen Brown, and I hope Celtics fans remember that as we move into the 2023-2024 NBA season. Simply put, Jaylen Brown is one of the best players in Boston Celtics history, and he's still in his prime.