It's not Harris' fault, but Jimmy Butler certainly thinks that Philly chose Harris over him. If there's any truth to that, it's a disaster of a contract. Again, not Harris' fault.
2023-24 Celtics
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My recollection it was Butler + tons of changes (e.g., no Ben Simmons) vs Harris and not as many changes. and the 76ers stiled valued simmons as a growing prospect.
in retrospect: L-O-L
in retrospect: L-O-L
I'm no fan of Tsunami Papi...and his play was definitely going to regress, but didn't he get hit by a car while riding a bike?
Maybe. Or maybe he wiped out on a bike that he wasn’t supposed to be riding and made up a story. Questions are being asked in Philly.
That's the story. Maybe its true but we were here for Jeff Kent's "truck washing" exploits and quite a few other accidents that may or may not have been accurately reported on.
As a side note, Oubre has the skills to play at a high level so if he figures it out maybe the play thus far is sustainable. However I watched him with the Warriors - in a role that should have boosted his career while helping the club by coming relatively cheap - and while it started well enough, it seemed like they couldn't move on fast enough at the end. There's a reason the dude was available until right before the season started.
Ok, so this goes back to what I said last night and matches the eye test. What to do about Jaylen? I’m talking about for this season, because I think we are going to end up with hurt feelings if/when teammates stop passing Jaylen the ball. I’ve seen it a number of times with Jrue already and I’m keeping a mental tally to see if we start hearing whispers/reports. How do we maximize him on this roster? You for sure cannot have a 60-70 million dollar player who makes the starting lineup worse. Ultimately, I think he’s likely traded, but this is a title favorite, and Joe has to find the best option here and now.
Now, good news is it’s a small sample, but early returns are he just doesn’t seem to fit with the other four starters. Ideally, he’d change his game up a bit, but that seems unlikely and doesn’t play to his strengths. What’s the best lineup construction to maximize his value?
I think this is silly. He fits quite well with the other four starters and he is going to help the Celtics win a lot of games.
I do think Mazzulla will continue to try to identify Jaylen's best fit with 2nd unit players when Tatum is not on the floor which is probably driving a lot of the on/off differential.
These guys want a championship and I believe that is what drives them. I don't think they are looking at success through a lens of personal stats. Jaylen is going to continue to get lots of touches. If his PPG are down by 20% I really don't think he is going to care as long as the team is winning. Barring extended injuries to other starters, Tatum's counting stats are probably going to decline this year as well. KP and Jrue are saying the right things in terms of embracing reduced roles. Reminds me of the approach KG and Ray Allen took when they came on board. I think the starting 5 recognize what a special unit this is and they just want to win.
Are you really keeping a tally of how often Jrue decides not to pass to JB? If so, please do the same for the rest of the starters because I would love to see the data.
If you are talking about this season then the $60-70M player is not relevant. Jaylen gets to $60M in salary in 2027. Perhaps he gets traded by that time. This season is all about winning a championship and I don't think Jaylen's ego is going to get in the way of that.
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The starting lineup is still dominant with Jaylen out there lol.
Could he eventually get dealt? Sure, but it’s definitely not something the team is currently thinking about. They are very clearly all in on this core winning a title.
Agreed with this. I think the problem is less Jaylen-specific, and more “what to do when JT is off the floor?”
Jaylen probably has the highest proportion of non-JT minutes, so his on-off appears worse than the others, when in reality, the others are benefiting from more with-JT minutes.
JB seems to have good chemistry with KP so I bet they try to milk that for awhile to see if they can win more of the non-JT minutes.
If that doesn’t work (or maybe even if it does), I wonder if they play around with JT and JB sitting together and letting KP/DW/JH play with Hauser and Horford/PP. That’s still a pretty good lineup and then they get JT AND JB playing against other second units.
Everyone else responding to this has already said it but this post is complete nonsense.
Just say you dont like Jaylen and you want him traded. Don’t try to couch it in actual analysis or statistics
Jimmy Butler was saying that basically Philadelphia didn't think they could 'control' Jimmy, hence they didn't want him back.
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/why-did-jimmy-butler-leave-76ers-heat-embiid-simmons/ekqakrhku9wurcoya0wxdxrr
How does one determine whether or not a player chooses not to pass to another player or not? Does a ball fake count or is that something else? The idea that one could actually try to keep this 'stat' and be taken seriously is pretty laughable.
The starting 5 is a +39.9 per 100 possessions with Jaylen on it.
Can someone explain to me how anyone thinks he makes them worse?
With 2 man combinations, here's Jaylen with the other 4 starters:
Tatum: +22.8
White:+21.1
KP: +19.8
Jrue: +15.3
The two outliers in 2 man combinations for Jaylen are:
Hauser: -21.2
Kornet: -40.7
But here's the thing:
Jaylen and Pritchard are a +7.2
I keep coming back to this. When Joe has used Jaylen as the 2, and Hauser as the 3 (usually in a double big with 2 of KP/Horford/Kornet) and only one guard, they struggle, because Jaylen is turning into the primary ball handler too often, as he's usually the only one of the group that can create his own shot. When it's 2 of PP/White/Jrue with Jaylen and one big, they look really good, because it gets Jaylen into a traditional 3, where he's not being asked to create the offense, he's the beneficiary of it. He's been great in a two man game with KP.
Are folks also completely ignoring that because they aren't consistently running their switching defense anymore, Jaylen is night after night, manned up with the best scoring wings and guards the other teams have, like all game long? I know we like to fall back into narratives about Jaylen's defense, but he's been pretty fucking great all year defensively while doing far more on that end than pretty much anyone besides Jrue.
I don’t think there’s any argument that Jaylen makes the team worse, but a lot of those net rating numbers are really buoyed by Tatum.
Here’s the net rating numbers with Tatum off the court
Jaylen/KP: -8.9
Jaylen/White: -11.6
Jaylen/Jrue: -19.8
Jaylen/Al: -6.2
Jaylen/Pritchard: -3.8
Jaylen has had a relatively rough start to the year, but it’s 10 games lol. I also think he’s shown that he’s fine taking less shots, so I don’t know where that comes from. Seems like a sports radio manifested take.
As for his defense, he’s been better this year for sure, mostly pretty good, going by eye test.
Of course, they're buoyed by Tatum. He's arguably playing the best basketball on the planet right now. Everyone's numbers are buoyed by Tatum.
Jaylen's 3 point shooting is now back up to his career norm. Besides his ppg, which is down as a function of taking less shots, and shooting pretty poorly, strangely, from 3-10 feet, I'm not sure he's had a rough start. His turnovers are down, his TOV% is down, his rebounds are down (which is a function of him consistently defending out by the arc, while Porzingis/Al/Tatum are roaming behind him), his ass% is down because well, they have two really good guards who should be penetrating and dishing to him now.
The bottom line is Jaylen is the only guy on this team that consistently plays without Tatum. IMO, when you have an MVP (like Embiid/Jokic/Curry/Tatum), you're looking to tread water in those minutes or at times, even stealing minutes of rest for Tatum. Jaylen is the guy who is asked to pick up that slack, and given the teamwide numbers, I think he's doing exactly what we need him to do. Dude's individual +/- numbers have been positive in 8 out of 10 games. IMO, he's really only played 2 bad games, the opening night game and the loss to Philly (but late in that Philly game, he made a 3 with about 2 minutes left, he made another 3 to get it to a 3 point game, he then blocked Maxey on defense, resulting in the chance to win the game with the KP 3 and the missed call on Embiid).
If folks think Jaylen should be putting up +10 numbers without Tatum on the floor, I don't think that's realistic, because it's not usually just Tatum off the floor. It's usually Tatum and another starter, sometimes 2 other starters. Break even in those minutes and the C's are winning almost every game.
That's an interesting thought exercise - has a team's second best player -had- that kind of positive impact without the clear #1 on the floor?
I'd love to see, say, Murray without Jokic, Maxey without Embiid, or whatever would be the best comparision to this particular situation.
Last season for Denver, the top 10 five-man combinations on the Nuggets with Murray in the lineup:
+12.6 (706 minutes)
+7.7 (326)
+12.3 (68)
+29.3 (60)
All of 4 of those lineups had Jokic in them.
The next 6 lineups, that didn't have Jokic ranged from a total of 24-59 total minutes played together. They ranged from -5.5 to -14.1.
Basically, the answer is no. At least for Jamal Murray, when you took Jokic out of the game, every lineup that played meaningful minutes lost ground.
In 10 games this season, Jaylen has already played over 10 minutes with 2 different lineups that don't have Tatum:
One is Jaylen/KP/Horford/White/Hauser: They are +8.6
The other is Jaylen/KP/Horford/Holiday/Hauser: They are -59.1
Obviously, we're in really, really small sample size land right now.
Last year, 9 of the top 10 lineups by minutes on the C's involved Brown and Tatum. The only one that didn't was 71 minutes for Jaylen/Smart/White/Grant/Horford and they were +18.3
As I keep looking into these stats. Jaylen and White seem to have two years of playing really, really well together. I think if you roll a unit of Jaylen/KP/White/PP/Hauser and then JT/Horford/Jrue/Hauser and either White/KP/PP you've got two formidable groups.
I’ll just go through playoff teams with two top options from last year.
Bucks- Holiday on/Giannis off: +4.8
Cavs- Mitchell off/Garland on: +6.3
Hawks- Murray on/Trae off: -6.0
Heat- Bam on/Butler off: -1.5
Knicks- Randle on/Brunson off: +8.8
Sixers- Harden on/Embiid off: +0.3
Clippers- PG on/Kawhi off: -1.8
Grizzlies- JJJ on/Ja off: +4.4
Kings: Fox on/Sabonis off: +1.8
Lakers- AD on/LeBron off: +3.9
Mavs- Kyrie on/Luka off: +6.6
Nuggets- Murray on/Jokic off: -8.8
Warriors- Draymond on/Steph off: +5.2
Wolves: Towns on/Edwards off: +2.8
Suns were too all over the place with their roster, but were -3.9 with CP3 in and Booker out.
Second guys can definitely lead lineups without their best player to pretty good net ratings. Hell last year the Celtics were +3.4 with Jaylen in and Tatum out, which was by far the best the Celtics have been without Tatum since he’s taken over. This year? The Jaylen led lineups have been a disaster, but again, it’s eleven games into the season.
I think Pritch and Jaylen together causes too much stickiness with the ball. Personally, I’d try to keep White and Holiday out there with Jaylen, on top of Porzingis. Then have the filth person rotate depending on matchups.
Pritchard/Tatum/Hauser/Al/Kornet is fine with me, that lineup would do a ton of regular season damage. It seems like they’ve settled on their pairings though, Holiday/Tatum, and White/Jaylen/KP. The latter should be more than good enough, once Jaylen figures out his role.
Bucks- Holiday on/Giannis off: +4.8
Cavs- Mitchell off/Garland on: +6.3
Hawks- Murray on/Trae off: -6.0
Heat- Bam on/Butler off: -1.5
Knicks- Randle on/Brunson off: +8.8
Sixers- Harden on/Embiid off: +0.3
Clippers- PG on/Kawhi off: -1.8
Grizzlies- JJJ on/Ja off: +4.4
Kings: Fox on/Sabonis off: +1.8
Lakers- AD on/LeBron off: +3.9
Mavs- Kyrie on/Luka off: +6.6
Nuggets- Murray on/Jokic off: -8.8
Warriors- Draymond on/Steph off: +5.2
Wolves: Towns on/Edwards off: +2.8
Suns were too all over the place with their roster, but were -3.9 with CP3 in and Booker out.
Second guys can definitely lead lineups without their best player to pretty good net ratings. Hell last year the Celtics were +3.4 with Jaylen in and Tatum out, which was by far the best the Celtics have been without Tatum since he’s taken over. This year? The Jaylen led lineups have been a disaster, but again, it’s eleven games into the season.
I think Pritch and Jaylen together causes too much stickiness with the ball. Personally, I’d try to keep White and Holiday out there with Jaylen, on top of Porzingis. Then have the filth person rotate depending on matchups.
Pritchard/Tatum/Hauser/Al/Kornet is fine with me, that lineup would do a ton of regular season damage. It seems like they’ve settled on their pairings though, Holiday/Tatum, and White/Jaylen/KP. The latter should be more than good enough, once Jaylen figures out his role.
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There are some pretty good players and teams in the negative and barely positive section there.
Yeah I’d say eight teams played really well, four treaded water, and two were ass.
All I care about is maximizing every player, because I want a fucking title lol. Jaylen is making it harder than it needs to be, so far. Last season, he dribbled the ball 2.8 times per possession. This season? He’s at 3.41, Tatum is at 2.74 after being at 2.85 last year, just to give an idea.
Though I will say, the last two games he played were pretty encouraging, as far as him scoring within the offense. Hopefully that continues to be the case.
Don't forget that the +/- numbers are half offense and half defense, while we discuss how much people are dribbling. SSS so far this year, but anyone who's playing with Pritchard is inheriting his team worst 113 DRTG/-.5 D-DPM.
Since you want to be snarky.
White/Pritchard: +24.4
Jaylen/Pritchard: +0.2
Holiday/Pritchard: +26.0
Zinger/Pritchard: +8.2
Tatum/Pritchard: +23.4
Weird that Pritchards defense isn’t dragging those other numbers down to net even. He has the 4th best on/off, so it hasn’t been much of an issue so far. Maybe we should go back to discussing dribbling.
LOL. Didn't mean that to be snarky. Just trying to keep defense in the conversation.
Lol honestly a little snark is fun at times, would be boring if everyone agreed on everything. As long as everything is respectful, of course.
One thing I do think we can all agree on is that I hope Jaylen has the best possible season he can, within the offense. If he plays like I think he can, schematically, then this team is close to unstoppable, even in the playoffs.
FWIW, I'm optimistic that they'll all find their way during the season. Adding Holiday and Porzingis to this offense and removing Smart/TL (both good subtractions) and replacing Grant (basically spot-up shooting replacement with Hauser) is awesome. But there's a lot of feeling out that has to happen. And the impact on defense is just as big IMO. Tatum's role really hasn't changed (he's the offensive alpha), and Jrue has staked out a position on defense as the big dog. But you can see everyone else feeling things out, which is completely understandable. It would be super weird if there weren't an adjustment period. But there's also no reason to think that water won't find its own level here. Nobody is trying to shoot the moon in a big contract this offseason, everyone seems to get along.
Ok, please allow me to clarify a few things, as I went back and my post was harsher towards Jaylen than I had intended it to be. A few points:
1. I should not have used the term "worse," because this team is a complete juggernaut and I certainly do not think Jaylen is a bad player. The better term is probably "fit." I think there are a lot of players who make a lot less money and are less well-regarded as a player than Jaylen Brown who could plug in with the other 4 starters and there wouldn't be much drop off, if any. I believe Jaylen's skill-set, particularly on offense, is superfluous to the other four and his offensive approach brings an unnecessary risk when they are all on the court together. Thus, I think his best role is more of the traditional 6th Man, on the court with the less gifted offensively, and the task for Joe is finding which players best worth with Jaylen to maximize the value he can bring to the team. This doesn't mean Jaylen can't start, so maybe not your traditional 6th Man in that regards, but just in terms of the role he plays during the "bench minutes."
2. This is not a Jaylen Brown thing, but if Jaylen does sense himself and from media hype type stuff that he is playing a smaller role than he was before, I'm concerned how he, or anyone in his shoes, would take it. The guy just signed a massive Supermax deal, plenty of athletes in his position would not take it well. Regarding the passing issue I mentioned, there are times where Jaylen wants the ball and makes it obvious. He'll wave his arms around in the air or hold his arms out expecting the ball. Marcus Smart would feed Brown whenever he did that, but I have definitely seen a number of times this year where Jrue has just ignored it and run the offense as usual. It's a change. I'm not sitting here keeping stats or anything like that, but I do think the shifting role for Jaylen will bear watching and right now the on-court chemistry with Brown and Jrue is off, and the numbers, cited above, bear it out. As long as they keep winning, it's likely nothing will come, but if there's a losing streak or they come up anything short of a title, we'll see what happens.
3. Regarding 10 games is a "small sample size," I'd say both yes and no. Yes, in the obvious sense that these guys just started playing together and both players and coaches are figuring out the best fits to maximize results. Obviously there's so much talent a lot is just going to work regardless, but there's still work to be done in maximizing their potential. I also say "no" because we have seen a lot of Jaylen at this point, and he's never really shifted his game much and his talents and warts have been pretty consistent for a while. Particularly on offense, I feel like his game is a pretty known quantity. His main instinct with the ball in his hands just seems to be to take over and score, and overcoming so many years of muscle memory at this point is an uphill battle. And that might be a good thing...just not with certain other players on the floor.
4. Jaylen's defense, to me, looks maybe slightly improved, but I think it's more a function that he's now able to get away with being more aggressive because the help behind him is so much better. I don't really have any qualms about the defense, though, and the effort has been there. I do think he is clearly the least talented on that end of the four starters, but that's nothing to be particularly ashamed of with the insane level of talent surrounding him.
Anyway, just a few thoughts. I apologize for not explaining this better before, I had not realized how harsh the language came off towards Jaylen until I read it again. In my mind it was more of a how do we best utilize Jaylen thing. Admittedly, I also am in the camp who thinks Jaylen is the 4th-5th most valuable player on this team and almost certainly someone you want to use as a trade asset moving forward (where I definitely think he has value), but I don't think he's a trash player or anything and he certainly doesn't make the overall team worse.
1. I should not have used the term "worse," because this team is a complete juggernaut and I certainly do not think Jaylen is a bad player. The better term is probably "fit." I think there are a lot of players who make a lot less money and are less well-regarded as a player than Jaylen Brown who could plug in with the other 4 starters and there wouldn't be much drop off, if any. I believe Jaylen's skill-set, particularly on offense, is superfluous to the other four and his offensive approach brings an unnecessary risk when they are all on the court together. Thus, I think his best role is more of the traditional 6th Man, on the court with the less gifted offensively, and the task for Joe is finding which players best worth with Jaylen to maximize the value he can bring to the team. This doesn't mean Jaylen can't start, so maybe not your traditional 6th Man in that regards, but just in terms of the role he plays during the "bench minutes."
2. This is not a Jaylen Brown thing, but if Jaylen does sense himself and from media hype type stuff that he is playing a smaller role than he was before, I'm concerned how he, or anyone in his shoes, would take it. The guy just signed a massive Supermax deal, plenty of athletes in his position would not take it well. Regarding the passing issue I mentioned, there are times where Jaylen wants the ball and makes it obvious. He'll wave his arms around in the air or hold his arms out expecting the ball. Marcus Smart would feed Brown whenever he did that, but I have definitely seen a number of times this year where Jrue has just ignored it and run the offense as usual. It's a change. I'm not sitting here keeping stats or anything like that, but I do think the shifting role for Jaylen will bear watching and right now the on-court chemistry with Brown and Jrue is off, and the numbers, cited above, bear it out. As long as they keep winning, it's likely nothing will come, but if there's a losing streak or they come up anything short of a title, we'll see what happens.
3. Regarding 10 games is a "small sample size," I'd say both yes and no. Yes, in the obvious sense that these guys just started playing together and both players and coaches are figuring out the best fits to maximize results. Obviously there's so much talent a lot is just going to work regardless, but there's still work to be done in maximizing their potential. I also say "no" because we have seen a lot of Jaylen at this point, and he's never really shifted his game much and his talents and warts have been pretty consistent for a while. Particularly on offense, I feel like his game is a pretty known quantity. His main instinct with the ball in his hands just seems to be to take over and score, and overcoming so many years of muscle memory at this point is an uphill battle. And that might be a good thing...just not with certain other players on the floor.
4. Jaylen's defense, to me, looks maybe slightly improved, but I think it's more a function that he's now able to get away with being more aggressive because the help behind him is so much better. I don't really have any qualms about the defense, though, and the effort has been there. I do think he is clearly the least talented on that end of the four starters, but that's nothing to be particularly ashamed of with the insane level of talent surrounding him.
Anyway, just a few thoughts. I apologize for not explaining this better before, I had not realized how harsh the language came off towards Jaylen until I read it again. In my mind it was more of a how do we best utilize Jaylen thing. Admittedly, I also am in the camp who thinks Jaylen is the 4th-5th most valuable player on this team and almost certainly someone you want to use as a trade asset moving forward (where I definitely think he has value), but I don't think he's a trash player or anything and he certainly doesn't make the overall team worse.
I’m not remotely worried about Jaylen this season, they’ll definitely figure it out. Could they eventually make a move involving him? Sure, but I’m not paying any attention to that in the now lol. Team is a juggernaut going for a championship, FOH with talk of anything other than that.
I just post the nerd stuff, and what I want to see them do to get the best out of everyone.
I appreciate when you and others post the lineup stuff, especially when we get more data. It's definitely the best apples-to-apples stuff that we have, particularly for assessing defense.
It’s still crazy early lol, usually you want to see 1,000 possessions before you can take anything from it. Everyone has just been posting/tweeting/whatever the early on/off stuff this season because the numbers are fucking absurd.
I would just like to point out the Celtics have had by far the most difficult schedule in the NBA up to this point.
My take is that JB doesn't make the team worse; it's just that JT is so awesome, because (I would surmise) that JB spends more time on the court without JT, his net numbers pale in comparison.
For example, IND game. JB was +22 when he was on the court but ended up -7 because the Cs were +29 when he was off the court. Mostly because JT was +36 when he was on the court (net +21).
Similarly, against MIN, JB was net -27 (On = -16; off = +11) but that's because the lineups with some combination of JT (net +11), Horford (net +19), PP (net +31!), Hauser (net -1), and Kornet (net +13) were much better than MIN's second team.
FWIW, JB's net rating is +12.4, which is apparently 12th according to this Reddit thread.
No, Maxey is not a better player than JB, and that's not a dig against Maxey. Maxey is great in transition and on the offensive end but he isn't guarding the other team's best player as JB does (as mentioned upthread).
Good CsBlog article on the developing chemistry between KP and JB here: https://www.celticsblog.com/2023/11/15/23960151/boston-celtics-jaylen-brown-kristaps-porzingis-two-man-offense-toronto-raptors-new-york-knicks.
They live in the same building so they ride to and fro games together sometimes.
Here’s a look at the net ratings for the two man combos of the starters, just to show the dominance. Courtesy of CTG
White/Tatum: +26.7
White/Jaylen: +19.1
White/KP: +31.1
White/Holiday: +24.1
Holiday/White: +24.1
Holiday/Tatum: +22.0
Holiday/KP: +23.1
Holiday/Jaylen: +15.9
Jaylen/White: +19.1
Jaylen/KP: +21.6
Jaylen/Holiday: +15.9
Jaylen/Tatum: +21.3
Tatum/Jaylen: +21.3
Tatum/Holiday: +22.0
Tatum/White: +26.7
Tatum/KP: +24.6
KP/Tatum: +24.6
KP/Jaylen: +21.6
KP/White: +31.3
KP/Holiday: +23.1
Then the off court for the starters.
Tatum: -6.3
White: +9.8
KP: +9.8
Holiday: +11.2
Jaylen: +24.5
White/Tatum: +26.7
White/Jaylen: +19.1
White/KP: +31.1
White/Holiday: +24.1
Holiday/White: +24.1
Holiday/Tatum: +22.0
Holiday/KP: +23.1
Holiday/Jaylen: +15.9
Jaylen/White: +19.1
Jaylen/KP: +21.6
Jaylen/Holiday: +15.9
Jaylen/Tatum: +21.3
Tatum/Jaylen: +21.3
Tatum/Holiday: +22.0
Tatum/White: +26.7
Tatum/KP: +24.6
KP/Tatum: +24.6
KP/Jaylen: +21.6
KP/White: +31.3
KP/Holiday: +23.1
Then the off court for the starters.
Tatum: -6.3
White: +9.8
KP: +9.8
Holiday: +11.2
Jaylen: +24.5
I appreciate the explanation. I think some of this is fair and some of it is still pretty unfair.
In regards to #1, I don’t think Jaylen should be the 6th man on this team. I think he requires more specific types of lineups and players than Tatum to thrive and I don’t think an all bench lineup does that
I think #2 is still nonsense. I haven’t noticed that at all this year and I didn’t notice it last year either.
3 I think is fair.
4, I think Jaylen’s defense is now completely underrated by most posters here. Everyone knows his warts but he’s capable of being a pitbull in 1 on 1 situations. I think we’ve seen more of that this year.
It's more than just that. Look at Jaylen's 2-man combo numbers with the other starters. Each starters' numbers are worse with Jaylen than for any other starter, and significantly so, with the exception of Tatum, where it's just slightly worse. This matches the eye test imo, where it appears the other 4 players work more cohesively as a unit on offense and Jaylen continues to do his thing, which is oftentimes fun to watch and oftentimes...not. But Jaylen's main value to me is where he can create offense in lineups that can otherwise struggle to do so, and the other four starters have no trouble whatsoever in that category, so the way he plays when he handles the ball hurts their offensive flow and creates that unnecessary risk. The team has been pretty incredible, but I think they can be even better.
As for Jaylen's overall net rating, I think that's largely a function of his benefiting from the other starters. Yeah, they do all contribute to it, but again I'm of the mind Jaylen has clearly been a step behind the other four starters to date in terms of added value, so he would be the one benefitting the most. The fact he's been the 5th best player just goes to show how freaking stacked the roster is, though.
I want to say this again - Maxey is an absolute mess defensively against the Celtics. Tatum was doing most of the damage (because he's the best at it), but any of the Celtics starters (outside of MAYBE White) can just ruin his day. Holiday can push him around (2 minutes into the game, Maxey had him pinned deep in the corner and Holiday just easily backed him down all the way until he was under the rim for a layup), Porzingis can just shoot over him, Brown can overpower him on drives or shoot over him, and Tatum can do all of the above. There's a real argument to be made that Maxey is a better offensive player than JB at this point but it's a bloodbath on the other end. They're gonna have to figure something out in the playoffs.
The other way to look at it is that JB spends more time playing without JT than any other player on the team. Of course his numbers with everyone will be lower because those numbers include time without JT.
The main takeaway from me is that JB is not as good as JT. That doesn't mean that JB isn't good by himself. I mean my eye test says that JT has been really awesome this year - making scoring look effortless from all 3 levels.
After the last PHI game, on the CsTalk post-game podcast, someone (I think Scal) mentioned that BOS didn't really even hunt Maxey like they might in a playoff game.
Maxey is a good player but he wouldn't even start on BOS (only because BOS's starting backcourt is so awesome).
This is a good post. One thing to note generally is that the RAPM/PIPM based metrics like LEBRON adjust for all the noise people here regularly claim as a reason we cannot trust them. In other words, LEBRON knows that Jaylen plays a bunch of minutes not with Tatum and attempts to adjust for that fact through a variety of statistical techniques.
And, to be clear, Jaylen is a good player as measured by LEBRON (and other similar metrics). He’s just far from a great player. He had a 1.63 LEBRON 2 years ago and 0.81 last year. By Box-LEBRON he’s just over 2 both those year. For context, he was the 5th best Celtic last year by regular LEBRON, just behind Smart, but the second best by Box-LEBRON, just ahead of White. I know folks reasonably disagree on this, but the mismatch in his box metrics and impact metrics matches what I see on the court, which is that he is less valuable than the sum of his skills.
I raise Box-LEBRON because I think people here dismiss the impact metrics because of his box score production. LEBRON had him as the 35th best player last year in its box score metric. Jaylen is really productive at all the things we typically measure. And Jaylen undeniably helps this team win games. But I don’t buy him as a top-30 player and struggle to believe he’s even too-50. And it’s not because he plays a bunch of minutes without Tatum. It’s because the team is significantly worse than it should be in those minutes if Jaylen were actually a top-30 or top-20 player.
I was curious about this, there is a gap in possessions for sure, but less of one than I was expecting. These are the team’s net with the following players in without Tatum, and how many possessions.
Jaylen: -16.6 in 174 possessions.
Holiday: -6.4 in 128 possessions.
Porzingis: -2.0 in 125 possessions.
White: -10.4 in 97 possessions.
This is probably sacrilegious to some posters here but do we really think that someone who’s not a top 50 player in the NBA made an All-NBA team last year?
I get that some media is stupid but that’s just a bridge too far for me.
I understand why Jaylen is so polarizing. For someone that’s not a huge basketball fan (or that knowledgeable about the game) but sometimes watches the Celtics, they see a guy dribbling off his foot or the ball just slipping out of his hand a good amount. For the fan who loves statistics and doesn’t trust their eyes that much, they go and look at the advanced stats and see the bad on/off, the low grades in a lot of the WAR/BPM stuff.
I appreciate the data and I understand that peoples eyes can fool them. But I see a guy who is basically the ultimate “90/10” player. Yes, he has some very noticeable warts. His handle is, quite frankly, bad and not where it needs to be. There’s some tunnel vision. He can get caught ball watching and lost on defense.
He can also create his own offense, get downhill against basically anyone, and is an absolute monster in transition. He’s also a very good one on one defender and can handle 1-4. Him and JT also seem to have this unexplainable chemistry where if one is playing badly, the other one picks it up.
Jaylen may get traded sometime next season. He has a large contract. He’s not the amplifier or connector that Jrue and DW are. He’s not a top 7 player in the world like Tatum. He’s not a 7’3 center who can fire off quick push shots from 3 like KP. He also doesn’t have that “new car smell” of KP and Jrue. But I really think some people need to just appreciate that we have a wing who made 3rd team All NBA last year and is a really fucking good player instead of looking to poke holes in everything about him (some more reasonable than others…I won’t even get into the idea that he somehow waves his hands for the ball more than other players and might be more insulted by not getting it in those situations. That’s insanity).
I will also caution that removing Jaylen for spare parts (which is what some posters seem to be saying) that everyone’s role in the offense and responsibilities gets pushed up. I’m not sure that everyone would love those results
I get that some media is stupid but that’s just a bridge too far for me.
I understand why Jaylen is so polarizing. For someone that’s not a huge basketball fan (or that knowledgeable about the game) but sometimes watches the Celtics, they see a guy dribbling off his foot or the ball just slipping out of his hand a good amount. For the fan who loves statistics and doesn’t trust their eyes that much, they go and look at the advanced stats and see the bad on/off, the low grades in a lot of the WAR/BPM stuff.
I appreciate the data and I understand that peoples eyes can fool them. But I see a guy who is basically the ultimate “90/10” player. Yes, he has some very noticeable warts. His handle is, quite frankly, bad and not where it needs to be. There’s some tunnel vision. He can get caught ball watching and lost on defense.
He can also create his own offense, get downhill against basically anyone, and is an absolute monster in transition. He’s also a very good one on one defender and can handle 1-4. Him and JT also seem to have this unexplainable chemistry where if one is playing badly, the other one picks it up.
Jaylen may get traded sometime next season. He has a large contract. He’s not the amplifier or connector that Jrue and DW are. He’s not a top 7 player in the world like Tatum. He’s not a 7’3 center who can fire off quick push shots from 3 like KP. He also doesn’t have that “new car smell” of KP and Jrue. But I really think some people need to just appreciate that we have a wing who made 3rd team All NBA last year and is a really fucking good player instead of looking to poke holes in everything about him (some more reasonable than others…I won’t even get into the idea that he somehow waves his hands for the ball more than other players and might be more insulted by not getting it in those situations. That’s insanity).
I will also caution that removing Jaylen for spare parts (which is what some posters seem to be saying) that everyone’s role in the offense and responsibilities gets pushed up. I’m not sure that everyone would love those results
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The idea that Jaylen Brown is not a top 50 player in the NBA just does not pass any test: sight, smell, or stats. Hate to do the appeal to authority thing but if that was the case he would have been traded this summer.
Man, this just sounds like Jayson Tatum distorts the whole net system for the Celtics, and skews the perception of Brown too, because I think the team (and its bench) is built around Jayson Tatum as its prime engine, and just plugging Brown in his place doesn't have the car running as smoothly.
I mostly agree, but there could be a greater fool
thing going, where they like him at $30M and think a bad team will pay heavily for him if he has 4-5 years of contract certainty at $60M.
There's one poster in this thread with a clear Jaylen problem that I've finally had to pink. The folks speculating about luxury tax bills and long-term cost structure of the team very well may have a point about the flexibility options and JBs deal down the road. I don't know enough to dispute the ownership's stomach for what are clearly compounding penalties and the roster-building ramifications. But the "team would be better off without JB or with JB sitting" takes are just noise. You're not wrong. Basing any "argument" on a dozen games of plus minus numbers is myopic at best and most likely conclusion-based reasoning.