What's weird about this is that this strange, kind of arbitrary fucking process has any bearing on how much teams can offer guys. I mean, imagine if Derek Jeter had been paid commensurate with the number of Gold Gloves he won.
Jaylen Brown, Year 7
- Thread starter ifmanis5
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My brain is working weird today. I read this and immediately began laughing at the vision of Jonah Hill explaining to Jeter in this tiny office why he isn’t being valued as a Gold Glover as steam is pouring off Art Howe’s head.
I watched Broussard explain his picks, and more interesting than him picking Jaylen to make 2nd team (and all the weird position shit) was how both he and nick wright agreed that it would be "shocking" if Brown didn't make one of the 3 teams. Based on the early returns, this sounds right.
Feels like an election night where all the early returns are surprisingly good for your preferred candidate.
Thanks to @RorschachsMask google doc it is looking very likely that Jaylen makes 2nd team All NBA as a forward.
Also, I normally like the guy, but fuck Kevin O’ Connor’s ballot is awful
Also, I normally like the guy, but fuck Kevin O’ Connor’s ballot is awful
KOC is very excitable and a bit of a dreamer, he loves potential and he loves theoretical results almost more than actual results. I like him, he thinks about things a little bit differently than most people, and that leads to some disagreements but I never get the sense it's in bad faith.
Agreed for the most part. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that he does stuff like this sometimes to try and show everyone that he's definitely not a Celtics fan. Nope. Don't give me a hard time online, I'm totally unbiased.
I think he’s a good basketball mind. He puts the work in and I appreciate that. I do agree that he’s not as smart as he thinks and he can be annoyingly obtuse when he’s put on the spot (I think the mismatch has got worse this season).
But overall I like him and he’s definitely not mean spirited or anything like that.
However, his ballot is still fucking terrible. It’s the worst one that’s been revealed by a mile
But overall I like him and he’s definitely not mean spirited or anything like that.
However, his ballot is still fucking terrible. It’s the worst one that’s been revealed by a mile
His all NBA ballot? Looks not terrible to me. And he has two open spots still
1st Team - SGA, Mitchell, Tatum, Giannis, Embiid
2nd Team - Fox, Luka, Butler, Jokic
3rd team - Curry, James, Randle, Sabonis
I'm nowhere near the NBA but Jaylen feels like the type of player that is pretty well regarded by his peers, opposing front offices as well as their pundits/fans - if he played elsewhere I would not be surprised to hear KOC gushing about him. Your theory kind of tracks, especially given that my perception that KOC errs on the side of dry whenever he covers anything Cs.
That said maybe I have missed more fawning pieces on Boston and/or maybe KOC's ballot simply reflects his views accurately.
Putting Luka at 2nd team forward is nuts. The guys a guard, I don’t know where this Luka at forward nonsense is coming from.
Honestly putting LeBron and Randle on 3rd team is crazy too. I am a LeBron fan overall but I really don’t think he deserves all NBA this year (and I don’t think that’s a hot take)
Not sure this was mentioned but Brad also came out saying that Jaylen should get the nod.
Has anyone gotten any word on Jaylen's hand?
Has anyone gotten any word on Jaylen's hand?
I really don't have in issue with this at all. Luka plays guard on offense and forward on defense. I know he sucks on defense, but it is half of his game.
KOC was briefly in my nba discord last season, he didn’t seem to be the biggest Jaylen fan. I think he’s pretty good and I like him for the most part, but there’s some head scratching things from him lol.
Forgive me if I missed this has already been talked about, but why do people seem to think it's a positive to allow voters to pick a player's position? Especially since this is attached to players salaries, putting a guard at forward just because they think 7 guards deserve it screws over a forward because the voter was too cowardly to make a call. Now if you say what if that 7th guard is a lot better than the 9th forward maybe it should just be a vote for the top 15, and each team positions don't matter, so you could have conceivably have a first team of Jokic, Embiid, Giannis, Tatum and AD.
They are instructed to place players at a position that they play regularly. Not the position they play the most, just a position that they play regularly. That leads to some messed up situations, which is why they did away with it starting next year when all-nba voting will be positionless.
Jaylen doesn't fit how an All-NBA player is "supposed" to look. People expect high-volume creators, DPOY centers, uber-efficient iso guys like peak Kawhi. Jaylen is more like the slashing wing version of Klay Thompson: he juices up an entire team hard, and works great when playing with high IQ players who make others around them better.
Put another way: if you have a team of guys who make guys around them better, it's really useful to have a guy who's good at getting made better.
Jaylen wouldn't be the #1 offensive option on any of the title contenders, but he'd be the #2 on all of them except the Suns, and that's really valuable.
I enthusiastically agree with the bolded. I love Jaylen but I think he would be #3 on the Lakers and with their strong finish to the season I do consider them a contender.
Which is a weird way to be, since Jaylen is a way different player than he was when coming up during the draft. Being lower on Jaylen heading into the draft and after his rookie season was perfectly reasonable; he was a very raw offensive player with really poor handle and a very shaky outside shot. He's a completely different player now, having made huge improvements in all those areas. It's strange to hold a bias against him because you didn't like him in the draft.
Sure, although the fact that we get to argue about whether JB would be #2 on an AD/LeBron team tells us all we need to know about Jaylen's value.I enthusiastically agree with the bolded. I love Jaylen but I think he would be #3 on the Lakers and with their strong finish to the season I do consider them a contender.
Honestly, I'm not even sure I'd want Booker over JB on a Durant/CP team.
You could make the argument that Jaylen would look even better playing next to one of the tier-1 offensive talents than he does next to Tatum, who is a notch below that.
I don’t think that’s necessarily the case with KOC, who at least owns the Killian Hayes miss, for example . I think it’s move of a case of getting lost in the analytics/second spectrum-type stats that aren’t as bullish on Jaylen as the proverbial eye test is. One of the things I like about the Mismatch is that Vernon, though conversant with analytics, leavens KOC’s takes with some common sense and humor.
I will stand adamantly by my draft report of him already being a good shooter in college with some of the best mechanics in the draft as I did post-draft. If you look purely at raw percentages you were missing all of the context. I’d have to find the thread by he was my favorite guy at this spot from a non-bias perspective (I admittedly wanted Dunn here due to the connection).
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I think KOC is down on Jaylen because he hits two of the things KOC is wary of:
1. Guys whose analytics profiles say they are not as good as the eye test.
2. Guys whose best asset is scoring.
I like Jaylen a lot, I hope he gets All-NBA, but he's probably benefiting from two things many here often decry... Narrative and PPG. Basically every advanced metric doesn't see him as an All-NBA level player (closest is DARKO which says he's borderline). He's scored a ton of points, in a pretty attractive way, and he's had big scoring nights when Tatum is out, he also had his best stretch late in the season which always helps with award votes. He's also the number two on a top team, which helps. Jaylen is a scorer, he's an okay (but probably slightly negative) defender. He's a solid rebounder, he's improved his passing but it's not at the level where he's a real playmaker.
Jaylen is an All-Star level player who probably deserves 3rd team All-NBA this year because a bunch of guys got hurt. But if someone wants to point to his on/off, his not great D, and that the team is just as good when he's out and replaced by White or Brogdon to say "I think someone else in the same range should get it" I don't think it's that bad.
1. Guys whose analytics profiles say they are not as good as the eye test.
2. Guys whose best asset is scoring.
I like Jaylen a lot, I hope he gets All-NBA, but he's probably benefiting from two things many here often decry... Narrative and PPG. Basically every advanced metric doesn't see him as an All-NBA level player (closest is DARKO which says he's borderline). He's scored a ton of points, in a pretty attractive way, and he's had big scoring nights when Tatum is out, he also had his best stretch late in the season which always helps with award votes. He's also the number two on a top team, which helps. Jaylen is a scorer, he's an okay (but probably slightly negative) defender. He's a solid rebounder, he's improved his passing but it's not at the level where he's a real playmaker.
Jaylen is an All-Star level player who probably deserves 3rd team All-NBA this year because a bunch of guys got hurt. But if someone wants to point to his on/off, his not great D, and that the team is just as good when he's out and replaced by White or Brogdon to say "I think someone else in the same range should get it" I don't think it's that bad.
One thing I’m curious about with Jaylen in these playoffs is his three ball, his TS was league average this year because he struggled so much from deep. Of the top 20 scorers in the league, he was 16th in TS, and way behind the group right in-front of him. He doesn’t get to the line a ton, so his efficiency is really tied to his outside shot.
He had one month over 35%, and it was 5 games in February. If he can hit his threes in these playoffs, this team becomes that much harder to beat. I’m cautiously optimistic, even with the cut on his hand .
He had one month over 35%, and it was 5 games in February. If he can hit his threes in these playoffs, this team becomes that much harder to beat. I’m cautiously optimistic, even with the cut on his hand .
I remember some of the analysis of Jaylen's shooting attributing some of his lower percentages to getting poor quality looks. Late in shot clock or unassisted, and that the hope was that better looks would almost be certain (at least early in his career) in the NBA. I don't remember any optimistic assessments of his handling and his passing though
That Cal system was an nba talent and shooting suppressing disaster. Between that, and Jaylen’s work ethic/physical tools, I was all in on him as the pick.
I've been worried this year that his shot looks really flat, or inconsistent in trajectory at best. He's had games where it looks cleaner, and ones where it doesn't.
I agree with this: Jaylen is an "old media" guy, in that writers who cut their teeth coving the NBA in the 2000s and earlier will be voting more heartily for him as opposed to more analytic-thinking 20 and 30-somethings. He is a player who falls into the similar narrative used to support previous All NBA/MVP votes for Carmelo Anthony, for example. To be fair, I love Jaylen's game in that he has the mindset of a bucket getter analytics be damned. His form of offense tends to be more successful in the playoffs than a player who shoots from his one particular sweet area on the floor and doesn't know what to do when the whistles are looser and the defense knocks you off your spot.
All I wanted him to improve on going forward was be a guy who, when Tatum is out, is more of a playmaker and doesn't have to score 50 himself to win. And I have seen that this year with some games where he'll stay close to 30, not trying to score both his and Tatum's points, but dish out more assists. His assists are up by 1+ over his career average this year.
Good point, I don't see anything in the underlying numbers to indicate he has "lost" his shot. 2-Pt % is up, FT % remains steady compared to his previous seasons. It could be a combination of factors, for example how many comfortable wins did the C's have this year (especially earlier in the season) where JT or JB were pulling up for heat check threes in the third quarter.
Regardless of what actually happened with Jaylen's hand, looks like he is fine:
View: https://twitter.com/John_Karalis/status/1646544571688525824?s=20
View: https://twitter.com/John_Karalis/status/1646544571688525824?s=20
I love this and have been checking it more often than makes sense. One note: Jaylen seems to have a 3rd team guard vote that's not showing up anywhere in the totals. Am I missing something?
Since he has more votes as a forward, the votes for him as a guard don't matter at all.
But yes, it could/should show up in the guard section, since Luka also is listed with his forward points, even though none of them will matter since he will get more as a guard.
Btw: Brogdon will take "6. man of the year" easily if the current trend holds...
Good. Quickley got some late hype based off of the Knicks hot streak, but his off the bench numbers are worse than Brogdon's in literally every way. Quickley really was excellent as a starter (23/5/5 in 21 games), his numbers as a reserve are completely unremarkable.
I like that he's a full go, but a short clip of him just playing defense (and mostly contesting with his off hand) doesn't make me feel any better. It's his shooting that worries me with a cut bad enough to require stitches on his right hand.
they matter very much. the way it works is this...
1. you get points based on all votes you get.
2. Players are then slotted into teams by highest vote, BUT at the position that they got the most votes in.
So say Jaylen gets 245 points at forward and 20 points at guard.
Say Tatum, Giannis and Butler get 300+ at forward.
Now say Markanen gets 250 points at F, Randle gets 248 and Davis gets 246.
Jaylen gets 2nd team F because his total is 265 points including all votes, and he slots in at forward because he has the most votes there, if the guard votes didn't count at all he doesn't make a team.
The way Jaylen could get screwed (he won't) is how Draymond got 2nd team behind DeAndre Jordan one year. Draymond had a lot more total votes than DeAndre (431 to 317), but because more of Draymond's votes came at forward than C, he slotted into the forward's pool where he finished 4th (behind LeBron, Kawhi and KD) instead of the C pool where he easily would have won.
edit- so hypothetically if guard is more loaded than F, Jaylen could finish 7th among guards with a vote total that would be 4th among Fs, if more of his votes came at guard he's out, if more came at F he's 2nd team All-NBA. This is dumb, and why positions are going away next year.
Sorry, was trying to show the tweet below, where Mazzulla said Brown was a full go at practice. Video irrelevant.
I'm glad you brought this up because it's a very common misconception and there's value in addressing it for all of our sake. Thanks Cellar-Door for the thorough explanation.
Here's a link to the NBAs release of the point totals in 2021. At the bottom of the first page you can find this:
Tatum had 69 total points that year and here's where the points came from:
1st Team Forward: 2 votes (10 points)
2nd Team Forward: 8 votes (24 points)
3rd Team Forward: 29 votes (29 points)
1st Team Guard: 0 votes (0 points)
2nd Team Guard: 1 votes (3 points)
3rd Team Guard: 3 votes (3 points)
He had enough points to beat out KI for the last guard slot but was considered a forward because that's where he received the most votes. All votes counted though, regardless of position.
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This is a fair write up overall with one notable exception.
I think Jaylen’s defense is probably overrated by “traditional” media members and underrated by the stats (and by you apparently)
He’s a good to very good on ball defender and poor to mediocre off ball. Calling him okay to slightly negative is underselling him a good bit. Zach Lowe voted for him to be 3rd team forward and I thought his write up was fair. Lowe said he’s not great off ball defender, not a great rebounder and not a great playmaker.
The other part is that this is just a one year thing and a bunch of guys did get hurt so the competition is pretty weak. IMO, it is pretty bad to put Randle and Markkanen ahead of him. I don’t think it’s inexcusable but I do think it’s definitely worse than just a shoulder shrug, not that bad. (On/off would favor those two since Jaylen is the #2 option and being replaced by players like White and Brogdon….the replacements for Markkanen and Randle are significantly worse)
Personally I thought this was one of his worst on-ball years, he's an effort defender, but not that effective.
As to on/off.... I think your case is better for Randle (not a huge impact) than for Markkanen. Markkanen when on the floor his team (a bad Jazz roster) is +3.5, Jaylen on a loaded Celtics team is +5.1. So despite all the talent on Boston, the team only wins Jaylen minutes by 5.1 points, to 3.5 points that the Jazz win minutes Markkanen plays. So that has nothing to do with the bench, just... how does this team do only in this guy's minutes (vs. the opponent).
Differential... now that gets really interesting....
The Celtics are +8.9 in minutes Jaylen sits... so they are actually almost 4 points better with him off than with him on, and they dominate opponents when he's on the bench.
Jazz are -6.8 in minutes Markkanen sits (so 10 points worse)... they get obliterated whenever he sits and are a good team when he's on the floor.
If I were arguing against Jaylen that would be my biggest case... it's not that his differential is worse than other guys... it's that he makes no real impact on his team, and in 1600 minutes without him the Celtics are the best team in the NBA.
Jaylen is having a very Raptors era DeRozan season in some ways.
The analysis is reasonable (I could nit-pick it apart, but that doesn't mean much one way or another). This makes me wonder what DARKO DPM is picking up that makes it high on Jaylen, given that it's a +/- based system.
Thanks for correcting me on the All NBA voting rules. Had a Khris Middleton situation from a couple years back in mind (who got votes at guard and forward I think and didn't make the team at all) but apparently remembered the gist of the whole thing completely wrong.
This is going to come off like a real old man “get off my lawn” post and I don’t want to tread into what might be considered sacrilege in these parts but….
If anyone with two eyes and half a brain thinks that the Celtics are better without Jaylen Brown than with him then I don’t know what to say.
I like looking at these stats and I think they are interesting to use as a data point but there’s something wrong and some factors are being omitted if something is saying that JB has no impact on the Celtics winning; let alone saying the Celtics would be the best team in the NBA if they just permanently benched him
If anyone with two eyes and half a brain thinks that the Celtics are better without Jaylen Brown than with him then I don’t know what to say.
I like looking at these stats and I think they are interesting to use as a data point but there’s something wrong and some factors are being omitted if something is saying that JB has no impact on the Celtics winning; let alone saying the Celtics would be the best team in the NBA if they just permanently benched him
Yeah, in 2020 Middleton received votes at guard and forward but he got more votes at forward so all of his points were applied to him as a forward, which wasn't close to enough to beat out other forwards. The same point total would have been enough to make it as a guard.
i would guess part of it is that a lot of non-Jaylen minutes are Tatum minutes and Tatum using possessions is much better than Jaylen using possessions because he's a top 5-7 guy in the league.
There is also some diminishing returns on this stuff, like 8 minutes a game or something there are non-Jaylen units that crush because they play better defense and the Celtics have scoring, but ask that to hold up for 25-30 minutes and it would fall apart. Looking at lineup ratings, it's mostly that the Celtics are ridiculous, and most of the few lineup combos that don't work are Jaylen plus bench or Jaylen and mixed bench/starters without Tatum (mostly Brogdon, Grant, Smart, Horford type lineups) where some of the units that crush the most are Tatum with bench guys (particularly White, Hauser, etc.) That's why it's important to look at what the team does with him on court... +5 is still really good, so the bench units crushing without him doesn't mean he's bad, it's just that Tatum is several steps ahead as a player and so when they don't share the court Tatum's units pull away.
This is fair.
Tatum is tremendous with situational role players.
Jaylen's On-Off #s get depressed due to Tatum's excellence.