All-Star. All-NBA. Jap Convention Finals MVP. Finals MVP. Champion. Jaylen Brown has achieved nearly every thing an NBA participant can dream of after they begin their profession. A uncooked prospect out of Cal, JB is a paragon of ability and participant improvement. At any time when a weak spot is recognized, Jaylen Brown incessantly dedicates himself to eliminating it.
As soon as upon a time, I wrote about Jaylen Brown. That article contained many issues: poor jokes, stretched metaphors, and the occasional first rate level. It’s, in different phrases, precisely like every thing else I write. I convey it up now for one purpose.
In that article, I make the purpose that Jaylen Brown shouldn’t give attention to enhancing as a playmaker as a result of that was skipping a step. First, he wanted to take care of his present utilization and playmaking quantity however minimize down on his turnovers. Properly, let’s take a peek on the numbers from the Celtics most up-to-date championship run.
Jaylen Brown’s playoff utilization % versus his turnover % since he grew to become a high-volume participant. This season was his highest usg% and his lowest tov%. He is evolving. pic.twitter.com/zyFOxUwP2z
— Wayne Spooney (@WSpooney) August 1, 2024
It was his highest utilization of his playoff profession mixed with the bottom turnover proportion since he grew to become a high-volume star.
Jaylen Brown is a downhill attacker. He’s at his greatest when he will get into the enamel of the protection, normally off the dribble. That can be the turnover zone. Defenders collapse, they swarm, and so they attempt to fill passing lanes. Jaylen has had hassle down there, till this season.
Limiting turnovers is among the harder expertise to grasp. It’s a effective line between decreasing their frequency with out it impacting your strengths and aggressiveness. He’s achieved these ends in two methods. First, he’s enjoying off of two toes within the paint extra — hop stepping, establishing, after which tricking defenders with an array of pivots, fakes, and counters to get his shot off or discover a cross.
He additionally improved as a post-up participant, particularly within the playoffs, usually turning onerous drive alternatives into managed and affected person put up ups.
Per Synergy monitoring, he didn’t flip the ball over as soon as whereas posting up within the playoffs.
The recurring theme in Could, June, and July was Jaylen’s comfortability stepping into the paint and enjoying at his tempo and dictating the protection. He’s sturdy sufficient, athletic sufficient, and proficient sufficient that he doesn’t have to pressure something.
That is simply one other reflection of who Jaylen Brown is as a basketball participant and an individual. It takes a mature, assured persona to realize what Jaylen has — to actually settle for his weaknesses, face them head on, and ultimately conquer them.
Jaylen’s recreation nonetheless isn’t good, however if you get to the place he’s, enchancment turns into a sequence of nit-picks, like that strict English professor that all the time corrected your passive voice (I swear I do it much less now, Professor Higginson). Now that the turnover points are corrected, it’s time he spreads his wing as a playmaker. He’s proven flashes, however his passing numbers don’t stack as much as different wings with related utilization.
Whereas he turned in a legendary on-ball defensive playoff run, he’s nonetheless bought points off-ball. Like every thing with Jaylen, he’s slowly eroded this weak spot by way of sheer pressure of will and onerous work, however the riverbank isn’t fully washed away but. He nonetheless will get misplaced in off-ball actions a bit an excessive amount of, usually the one Celtic spinning round on the lookout for his cowl, however these situations have gotten fairly uncommon.
Right here’s the factor, if Jaylen does appropriate these weaknesses, the place does he go? What kind of participant is he then? An on-ball scoring murderer that is also a plus-playmaker? An elite on-ball defender that executes the off-ball scheme completely? That’s rarified air, however I wouldn’t put it previous Jaylen Brown to be respiratory it in a 12 months or two.
Even when Jaylen doesn’t enhance on what he’s proper now, we already know crucial factor about his recreation: he’s adequate to be a champion and adequate to be the perfect participant in an NBA Finals. The stress is off Jaylen to enhance, however that most likely gained’t cease him.
