The non-Jaylen lineups you refer to have played 21 and 17 minutes, respectively. It’s too small of a sample to make any conclusions. We only have enough sample for individual on/off, and Brown is third amongst starters behind VJ and Embiid. He hasn’t been some huge drag on the Sixers net rating

Tbf, the Celtics have like four or five different team looks under two different coaches, and the pattern is consistent

At the same time the sample size would not have me worried. Sixers have won small and lost big, so it’s not surprising that their most played line-up isn’t positive. I do think the starters will end up big +, but JB will probably still have negative +/- when others sit

Life, uh, finds a way

Only up from here. He’ll lock in.

PG also doesn’t really have any bad blood with anyone on the Sixers, so him just being chill makes way more sense. He was literally helping guys up and laughing the whole game.

JB didn’t understand his role on the Celtics since he was drafted. On a team that plays by the rule of “pass out of a good shot, find a great shot”, he plays 1v5.

This is why a ton of us Celtics fans have been saying this is addition by subtraction.

What exactly is his role?

He doesn’t want to understand his role on the sixers or anywhere for that matter. He’s the Sacramento Kings’ dream

The early fouls definitely threw him off his game too. Ofc the online discourse is too reactionary in both directions, he’s a consistent player and I’m sure this plus minus shit will even out over the course of the season.

Yall really don’t have to worry about him until April lol

Why would that only affect JB and not the other starters

Cleaning the glass ignores garbage time to calculate on/off and that’s where I pulled seven of ten years from.

Nah, that ain’t it because you’d see that effect with at least some of the other starters rather than just him and also there are advanced stats that account for that unlike just raw +/- and he still rates poorly.

So wait, large sample size doesn’t matter, and also watching him play and literally seeing the ball stop, the game slows down, and the leads vanish and evaporate because he keeps going iso, also doesn’t matter?

So what matters then? Where does the praise come from? Some vague “he was a part of a winning team for so many years” bs?

He won a FMVP on my favorite team. Keep the +- 😭

Okay I was wrong but only because I assumed you were an actual Celtics fan lmfao

Dudes in the comments talking about how you’re a Lakers flair

So really you’re just a JB hater. Fair take tbf but what’s with the flair changing

Here’s a guide on when it is appropriate to react to Jaylen Brown’s impact:

0 games played, day of the trade: “Holy shit Sixers got Jaylen for nothing, great trade!” –> ✅ Valid sample size

0 games played, highlights of Sixers offseason practice: “This team is going to be scary!” –> ✅ Valid sample size

5 games played, Sixers are #1 seed in the East: “Sixers are contenders! Jaylen is so impactful” –> ✅ Valid sample size

12 games played, Sixers have a questionable net rating, and Jaylen continues the 10 year trend of questionable on/off data –> ❌ “STFU nerd small sample size!”

So overrated he was the FMVP on a superstacked team that won a championship and dogwalked everyone on the way to the finals. Go ahead and show us those 10 year sample sizes big dawg, instead of vaguely gesturing towards them.

Can’t believe yall got a heat fan defending this dude, but yall stat nerds are getting way too fucking comfortable around here

I feel like those 10 years of sample size were completely rendered moot when he won finals MVP.

JB did it to himself TBH. Playing up the one sided beef with Tatum and then having a terrible game makes you pretty ridicule worthy.

That said, you are correct, he has a good game tomorrow and everyone mostly forgets about that. Plus whenever the Gary Trent Jr. stuff hits it’ll be the Bucks and his turn in the mocking spotlight here.

fyi, subreddits automatically link so you don’t have to do the formatting for r/nba

You can look at strategy, shot distribution/quality, how players are looking physically, changing roles, etc. All of that is much less random in a small sample than plus minus or on off data. Even counting stats and percentages are much less random in a small sample than plus minus.

I definitely think there exists a middle ground. But yeah I’d rather go to this extreme then “conversations ceasing to exist” extreme. At the end of the day you can control what content you are seeing. Why would I click on a post and read the comments of a bad Wemby game if I thought people’s reactions to that are annoying.

To be fair, those 6 wins are over the

3-6 Falcons

3-5 Buccs

3-5 Saints

2-7 Colts

5-4 Browns (who they also lost to)

6-3 Bengals

The Bengals are good but that’s not exactly a murderers row of teams.

btw rodgers has the Steelers 6-2 right now and is playing better than quite a few QBs.

Just want to point out that Rodgers is currently ranked 29th in EPA / play this season and is having his worst career season by almost every metric. There are in fact very few QBs Rodgers is playing better than.

Hell there were Knicks fans doubting Brunson after game 3 of the Finals. Lots of “hero ball doesn’t work” type comments. NBA fandom is fickle.

Yep geez that’s bad

this is reddit lmao, thats like telling a bunch of contrarian to not be contrarians

Idk all i saw was a full on essay reacting to a recent overreaction, that had dude swearing every other word. Just didn’t seem like it should be that serious, to me, which is why I left that comment

Kinda like how Celtics fans always want to trade Hauser because they think he’s easily replaceable by anyone who can shoot decently. There’s a reason the Celtics really value him (especially at his salary) and you can’t just slot in someone with a similar three-point percentage and expect them to work as well.

he’s an amazing point of attack defender, one of the best in the entire league. he’s just become scared to shoot over the last year or so.

Yeah their ring hopes resting a lot on LeBron and Joel is a tough ask . We shall see.

Yeah Embiid has had 4 Hall of Famers back him up in his career and this has been the story every time. He’s probably the most impactful player ever but it’s just hard to visually see. everything comes crashing down when he is off the court and Brown’s minutes have been staggered with Embiid so of course his +/- swing is worse.

Were tons of people on here doing it? Yes, obviously. But no, I’m not one to circlejerk like that, it’s annoying as hell.

why would sixers fans be defending the celtics?

He is, but his threes are so bad to start the year and he’s not operating in his comfort zones on offense

?? Prime embiid is one of the most skilled ball players ive ever seen

Yeah ultimately Brown has always been pretty offended to not be in the same conversation as the superstars, but the analytics have always just pointed to the fact that he doesn’t belong in that group.

Boston couldn’t supermax both he and Tatum. No GM in the sport is picking Brown over Tatum. The future financial flexibility the Celtics will need had their hands tied.

There are a handful of players that the analytics say are just good but not great.

Ant, Brown, Cade.

I have noticed that all of their teams do much better than people expect when they go down.

Like the Wolves were 3-1 when Ant got injured and people thought they’d crash without him. They’re 6-2 without him so his presence hasn’t effected their winning at all.

Ball stopper/ TO guy has definitely been Embid, even Lebron at this point this season. JB has taken over second half’s and won at least 3 games for them already, he has been good other than last night.

The whole point of this post is that dude isn’t and hasn’t really been balling all that well.

Besides, you can just scroll on by and ignore threads like this.

No one is making you open it up and make comments.

This is like complaining about seeing dicks while browsing pornhub.

Brother, you’re doing that to yourself.

With the matchup that we just had, yes, absolutely it is. If it weren’t people wouldn’t be talking about it so much. Stop complaining.

Yep. He’s great at stopping ball hogs. It’s like he’s designed his defense to specifically stop Jaylen Brown

This exactly! Thank you!

Being able to switch repeatedly and onto multiple positions, being able to double team and trap opposing scorers to blow up actions, being able to rotate and get a hand up

Yeah guys like Hauser and Pritchard (not to mention Tatum) being better at this stuff than Brown are part of the reason for his on/off splits.

What a perfect description

Terrible comparison. Kobe was that AND was a great team defender too. Brown is a dumb player both on and off the court and the Celtics knew exactly what they were doing when they got rid of him

Christ almighty what a Reddit comment. Being able to guard a skilled perimeter player on ball is a very valuable skill, especially in today’s modern NBA. Top tier teams hunt mismatches all the time, and having multiple good perimeter defenders is the foundation of elite defenses. From 2008-2010 the Lakers had a top 6 defense, and Kobe was very much a part of that playing 38min a night. You really think he was just aura farming and ignoring everyone else other than his assignment?

If you want to see examples of Kobe playing within a team defense, watch the interviews of him and Wade during their time on the Olympic team. He specifically talks about taking the role of hounding and pressuring on ball while Wade waits in the back hunting steals in passing lanes.

Yep. And the advanced stats that make use of the player tracking data finally give numbers to the importance of all those important non-flashy skills.

One of my favorite quotes I occasionally see floating around this subreddit is “You can tell whether someone actually watches basketball or just box scores and highlights by asking them their opinion on Draymond Green.”

lol I was the opposite outside of track. I was fast and strong but uncoordinated and lacked aggression. I could however read the situations and fill in the needs/gaps.

His team defense has always been a glaring weak spot. Last night was a perfect example, he ball watches, loses his man, refused to move off Tatum giving PG multiple open 3’s. His basketball IQ has always been low and I think that’s what those stats show.

What you are describing is an average basketball player whose scoring numbers have convinced people he is all-nba level.

Analytics do say Brown is a negative player if you account for pay and role.

Sure, if he were making $30M and playing fewer minutes, he’d be a great addition on a team. But he is playing too many minutes and taking up too much salary with his supermax

He’s not incredibly efficient and he turns the ball over and doesn’t pass. He does some things really well and he can turn it up a notch in big moments but he has some weaknesses if you’re comparing him to many other guys. The composite player that he is though is still valuable but if he doesn’t have the ball in his hands he’s not impactful and if he doesn’t get it he may take a bad shot.

Raw on-off stats lie a fuck-ton, especially in the short term as there’s no correction for surrounding talent on your side/the other side (as well as how the quality of the rest of the team).

Like look at the Celtics so far this season of all players with more than 20 min/G well as Jaylen Brown:

Player

On +/-

Off +/-

On-Off +/-

Time Decay RAPM

DARKO

LEBRON

EPM

Hauser

23.7

1.9

21.8

3.0

0.9

0.6

+1.5

Queta

18.8

4.9

13.9

4.2

1.7

3.7

+3.2

Pritchard

16.5

4.7

11.8

2.7

1.9

1.9

+3.7

George

16.0

5.1

10.9

3.1

2.1

1.7

+2.6

Tatum

10.1

13.2

-3.1

3.6

4.9

3.9

+5.9

Scheierman

8.9

12.8

-3.9

-0.1

-0.4

-0.3

0.0

White

8.9

14.6

-5.7

3.8

2.0

4.6

+3.4

Jaylen Brown

2.9

-2.0

4.9

-0.3

2.2

1.5

+0.4

Is Hauser the most valuable Celtic by far? Is Tatum the fifth best? Derrick White the worst? Is Brown more valuable than Tatum?

That said, if you look at the more advanced stats that attempt to measure same thing but correcting for teammates/opponents.

Stats from:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2027/on-off/

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/PHI/2027/on-off/

https://nbarapm.com/player/Jayson_Tatum (and similar)

https://dunksandthrees.com/epm?team=BOS

I think with JB and many others the issue with assists is that he also always had a lot of turnovers, and often those turnovers had more negative value than the assists had positive.

I will still stand by what I said last year though, there’s something weird about JBs game that makes him look worse analytically than he really is, and I think last season was the proof. I just think there’s no way that Celtics team wins 56 games if you replace JB with some league average player. His brand of tough bucket getting has a value that seems to be tough to pick up analytically, even if that value is still actually less than his raw stats and eye test would suggest.

Yep, EPM (estimated plus minus) has loved Melo for years, frequently putting him as a top 10 offensive engine. EPM is the same stat where depending on the window and who else you included, it showed JB as the 7th best player on the Celtics.

Really weird how you’re throwing TS% around in here, which obviously isn’t the whole story but is one of the most important numbers to understand how good someone is at putting the ball in the basket. (And, yes, helps explain why Brown isn’t as good as his raw numbers make him look.)

On/Off stats lie all the time, in small sample sizes. Jaylen Brown being negative in 10 games this year should mean very little on its own. The fact that Jaylen Brown’s teams have been better with him off the floor in four of the five previous years should mean a tremendous amount.

They lie a lot but with enough observations you can rely on them more. Jaylen played in Boston for almost a decade the stats don’t lie over the long run.

Where are the timberwolves and hornets lol. T wolves already had something good going on over there and obviously Ant. Idk why the hornets got a mention lol

I agree with you but just want to add the caveat that on/offs never lie… over large samples. They can certainly be misleading in small samples. But Jaylen Brown has been a net negative on/off for his entire career and has 4 straight negative seasons coming into this one.

Proved what wrong? That numbers, data and science (in it’s totality mind you, not the handpicked ones to run some narratives) can show patterns and be used to predict future sets?

Every since NBA champion of the past 10+ years has had a front office making decisions based on analytics.

Not having an analytics department is a massive disadvantage.

Nah I’m team nerd

“You have to watch the games” is anti vax logic lol

Just so you know, Boston has one of the biggest analytics departments in the NBA. Our coach and GM are also analytics-oriented.

So you posting a picture of the title win just proves the point.

His team literally performs better when he doesn’t play. This has been the case his entire career. Boston has played at a 60 win pace without him since he got drafted.

Edit: Just checked. Boston had a 95-38 record without him, 47-10 over his last 4 seasons.

He’s been on some great teams. Many are saying he is on another great team.

His teams do better when he sits.

He won Finals MVP, but Tatum was the best player in that series. On TV his on ball defence on Luka caught the eye, but when you watch it back only one of the Jays had the entire defence looking at him.

He was great that series. Tatum led the Celtics in points, assists, rebounds.

FMVP in no way invalidates advanced stat, since it’s an award that’s voted on.

People who actually watch the games closely see his glaring flaws though. People who watch highlights think he’s a superstar.

Have you ever considered that it’s very easy to do both?

This isn’t an either/or situation

It seems you don’t realise that on/off numbers are descriptive, not predictive.

To dumb it down for you to understand, it is a stat that describes how the team performs with a player on and off the court.

To dumb it down even further, the stats show us that throughout his entire career, no matter the teammates, the coaches, front office, opponents, etc, JB has been a negative on-court presence HIS ENTIRE CAREER, when compared to how the team does with him off.

Again, this isn’t some magic pulled out of someone’s ass. It’s basic statistics.

Those “nerds” you refer to run every front office in the NBA, and are the reason behind Boston’s 2024 NBA championship.

But sure, tell us more about how irrelevant they all are.

Your team employs the largest analytics department in the NBA

The Celtics literally had a better winrate without him over his 10 years there.

They played at a 60 win pace without him, over a span of 10 years.

His mid-range shot making has become such a huge part of his offense because of that loss of explosiveness imo; he’s had the nagging knee trouble for years now and while he can still get up there’s definitely been a loss of explosiveness/burst.

Doesn’t help him that when he’s sharing the floor with Embiid he’s typically parked in the spaces that JB likes to operate from.

He just had the best season of his career though??

way worse on offense

I got massively downvoted for saying that several times. If Boston had DeRozan instead of JB nothing would’ve changed. DeRozan would be thought of as a superstar and JB would be just another good player.

The difference is the other major players on the Celtics didn’t have a bad +/-. You’d think if you could explain it away due to the Celtics having a good bench, etc., that that would also impact guys like Tatum and White.

That’s a bit of the Bradley Beal argument. Somebody needs to make Volume buckets and get high use on bad teams.

It would be one thing if his efficiency was kinda ass but he had the ability to pass out of doubles effectively ala Cade Cunningham prior to this season. The number of possessions I’ve watched him just completely tank by dribbling around doing fucking nothing for 18 seconds only to take the worst drive into 2 defenders then either pass the ball to the other team or clank the shot is exhausting.

He’s so good at finishing at the rim and this season he’s been an effective 3pt shooter, so why he falls back on these garbage 18ft contested midranges every other touch genuinely pisses me off to watch.

It’s interesting in the discourse of the trade that the picks are not even considered. It’s a straight up trade of JB for PG and is evaluated purely as that.

Dude this team has been literal torture to watch for my entire life and now you’re actually trying to say that we should be mad at Gansey for putting together an actual competitive team?

They’re 9-3 having barely played together with no offensive chemistry yet and are 2-0 vs the reigning champs and 1-1 vs Boston.

I’d much rather have JB going forward than a guy that hasn’t stayed healthy in years and is probably retiring soon.

JBs also had the same significant glaring weaknesses since he was drafted. He kills at least a half dozen possessions every game, and it’s obvious just by watching the game every time Wade takes his spot the entire game flows better and easier. I said it before the season even started JB should be running the bench unit with like 25~ minutes a night but Nurse doesn’t have the balls to do that, so instead he’ll continue fucking up the starting 4 and could easily sink the season solo, exactly like he did to the Celtics last playoffs.

6+ years of elite play for JB is extremely generous.  His game won’t age well

It’s an untrue narrative, imo. The Celtics wanted him; that’s why they signed him to a big contract.

Philly wanted him.

The Bucks wanted him (or at least were willing to engage in trade talks).

A bunch of players like LeBron and sports journalists have described him as one of the top players in the league. Mazzulla on the Celtics said similar things.

It seems like there are a lot of JB haters, who have now combined with Celtics propagandists trying to slander JB now that he’s gone.

He’s clearly an excellent player, who has a few flaws in his game like all players do.

I mean, there was an actual ton of it. Lots of people thought brown was not a good fit next to Tatum and that he was overrated.

Also, they gave him the max because it has been the smart move to ‘keep the asset’ in the NBA. The fact that they had to take back the ‘worst contract in the league’ is all you need to know about how much they valued him. they also did the trade completely in order to not continue paying him.

And the criticism to Jb (by me at least) is in relation to his contract but also the amount of involvement and impact he is going to have on your team. As a 4th guy getting 30m, upgraded Andrew Wiggins style, I like him. At $60m+/year for the next 5 years taking the first second most shots on my team, hard pass

What is confusing. It was open season for Brown, they were loud and clear shopping him and Philly traded (what was seen as) a negative asset in George that would need a 1st to dump and another shitty first round pick. For a good player, that is the whole league say ‘no thanks;