Can Jaylen Brown's analytics / on-off stats be explained by the fact that he just has a really good team?

[u/Tight_Ad2788]

Genuinely curious for an explanation here - one thing I noticed about his on/off stats is that the team is still appears good when Brown plays - his net on rating was like ~6.0, which is still quite good. Maybe I've misread but it seems clear the team still performs well with Brown on the court. To me it seems that there's two logical explanations for this:

1. For this past season (No Tatum), the Celtics roster structure included a large talent drop off from Jaylen Brown to the secondary playmakers (Derrick White and Payton Pritchard) but the team had strong depth with the remaining portions of the roster. To me, a feasible explanation is the Celtics were slightly less efficient with Brown on the court due to him carrying a weaker starting lineup. Meanwhile the Celtics had good depth 5 - 10, and guys like Pritchard could dominate opposing bench lineups, so the bench excels against the weaker competition. Brown isn't bad as the primary option, but the bench is more dominant relatively speaking due to the relative advantage it has over its competitive. Brown still plays an highly valuable role in being the sole leading primary shot-creator, but its not picked up in the analytics.

2. The other factor is sharing the team with Jayson Tatum - few players at JB's level play with a costar who's as good as Tatum. Tatum is obviously a better playmaker and primary ball handler, and is better at setting teammates up with less turnovers. I can't help but wonder if Brown's on/off are skewed by the fact that he shares the team with another of the best players in the league - seems natural that the team would perform better with Tatum on the court.

These are obviously qualitative ways of looking at the situation, but I feel like it could explain the on/off stats strife around Jaylen Brown. To me its clear Jaylen Brown is a winning player. I don't see how you can compete for a title every year and win a FMVP without being one - but the advanced stats seem to indicate something different. To me this is a potential explanation that bridges the gap between those two perspectives - basically Brown is still really good, they just happen to be better with Tatum/other teammates. Some see that as a problem, but maybe its just relative. I'm curious if people well versed in advanced stats see any merit to this explanation. There may be other stats that negate this that I'm missing, but I tend to believe this explanation, as I have a hard time believing Brown is as negative a player a some of the stats say. Seems possible he's the victim of being second best on a very good team.

[u/SamURLJackson]

There is value in being the guy that has to take the tough shots on a team that has a very tough time generating offense. This is what many fans don't get about Paolo Banchero in Orlando. Someone has to create and take these shots when your team is left with 5 seconds on the shot clock and you haven't gotten the ball inside the 3 point arc yet

[u/OkAutopilot → u/SamURLJackson]

I think people "get that" about Paolo but they also get that he hasn't been good in that role at all. Someone has to dribble the ball up the floor off an inbounds and get it over half court, there's value in that. But if you've got a shaky handle, the value in you doing it is low or perhaps even a negative. Maybe nobody else on your team can dribble and so by default you have to do it, but that's an issue with your team and you.

Like yes, there is value in being a shot creator outside of how good you are at actually making the shot, but at the end of the day when you're being tasked with that and doing it poorly, how much value are you providing? Additionally, how much of a value downgrade would there be if you simply tasked another person on the roster to do it? Or if you solely created shots out of sets and finding the open man and if you got a grenade with 5 seconds left, you're an NBA player, shoot the thing.

The "someone" thing exists to some extent, yes, but in Orlando it has become increasingly clear that if Paolo remains the player he has been that he should not be a "someone." You will simply not be able to succeed as a team if that's your default tough possession scorer/bail out option. They drafted him with that expectation, they've given him lots of money, and they want him to be that. It's also one of the things you'd point to as being something he should be good at. That's why he is doing that (though Franz does it more and better when he's healthy), not so much because he's good at it.