Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics
Eyebrows were raised when the Boston Celtics decided to part ways with Jaylen Brown. After all, he’d just completed his best season with the franchise, leading them to the second seed in the Eastern Conference and emerging in the MVP conversation.
However, a recent article from ESPN’s Dean Oliver has shed light onto how Brown’s on-court contributions didn’t translate beyond the boxscore. Oliver, who is among the best NBA analytics minds not currently employeed by a team shared where Brown ranked among all NBA players in terms of impact last season.
“The claims of Brown being the league’s “best two-way player” came mostly after he had his best game of the year against the LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard, but few noticed Brown’s next game, where he scored 14 points on 24 field goal attempts,” Oliver wrote. “Maybe we term this a “highlight bias” because our voters perhaps saw those highlights and loved him, ranking Brown between No. 9 and No. 23. The metrics’ average, meanwhile, was around No. 60.”
Oliver then explained why Brown ranked so low across several advanced metrics, including DARKO, Estimated Plus-Minus and LEBRON.
“The quick reasons the metrics don’t rate Brown as highly are that the Celtics played better without him, he turns the ball over a lot and he doesn’t have great vision. The not-so-quick reasons filled plenty of podcast space over the summer.”
The Celtics Had Multiple Reasons For Trading Brown
Boston likely didn’t trade Brown because of what the analytics say about his impact. Instead, his impending contract extension with the franchise, which would have seen him earning $70 million per year at his age-33 and 34 season was more likely the driving factor.
Furthermore, Brad Stevens has noted on multiple occasions this summer that having two max-usage talents on the same team wasn’t a logical path forward long-term.
“There were a lot of things that went into it,” Stevens said recently, via Masslive. “You have two max players, two max usage; those are the things you have to make a decision on. … Jaylen’s a great player, but I like the team we have.”
When you factor in both those issues, along with Brown’s less-than-ideal analytics, the reasoning for Boston’s decision to trade him becomes far more clear.
Jayson Tatum Has Addressed The Brown Trade
During a recent appearance on ‘The Dan Patrick Show,’ Tatum addressed Boston’s decision to trade Brown, and the history they’d built together with the franchise.
“For me, I love that guy,” Tatum said. You can’t talk about him without talking about me, and vice versa,” Tatum said, describing two young players who grew up in the league together and “really just pushed each other.”
Ultimately, Stevens made the decision that he believes gives the Celtics the best chance of success. While losing Brown certainly hurt, particularly after the trade sent him to the Philadelphia 76ers, Stevens is positioning the team to contend for years to come.
Unfortunately, the second luxury tax apron also played a role, and while the Celtics were the first team to deal with those ramifications they won’t be the last. Brown was just the highest-profile casualty of the Celtics resetting their cap sheet.
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Adam Taylor is a basketball reporter covering the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks and Miami Heat for Heavy. He holds bylines for CelticsBlog, USA Today and Yardbarker. Adam also covers the WWE and AEW. He has a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Open University. More about Adam Taylor
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