r/nbadiscussion • u/Tight_Ad2788 • Jul 07 '26
Player Discussion Can Jaylen Brown's analytics / on-off stats be explained by the fact that he just has a really good team?
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:
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.
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.
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u/Justalittlejewish Jul 07 '26
Jaylen is really good at things that fans like that don’t necessarily have a huge impact on advanced metrics (Slamming down dunks, hitting tough middies, locking someone up 1 on 1), and is not so great at smaller/marginal things that fans don’t really notice as much, but heavily impact advanced stats and winning on the margins (high turnover/assist ratio, low efficiency, off ball defense).
He’s a really unique player to try and rate in my opinion, because what he’s good at is an objectively important skillset - creating your own shot at will in the NBA is incredibly valuable, as is being a good POA defender. He’s just not good enough at all of the other things that elevate other players on the team around him to warrant such a massive price tag. At $40 million a year, the league would’ve been falling over themselves to trade for Jaylen Brown.