Kevin Stacom: Order in the Court! Order in the Court! - Of Public Opinion

Kevin Stacom: Order in the Court! Order in the Court! - Of Public Opinion

Jaylen Brown’s first public statement was released Thursday on X after the somewhat shocking trade:

“I’m still processing how this all went down…” 

Well, I guess a lot of us are.

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A quick background check. 

This past season with the Celtics was one of the more unusual ones of recent memory. I can’t remember such a dramatic reversal of fortune as what had occurred from the end of a very feel-good season, finishing with a surprising 2nd place in the Eastern Conference with a 56-win record, to collapsing in the 1st round of the playoffs after being up 3 to 1 to Philadelphia, losing in a tough 7th game.

The feel-good part was a well-earned respect for a team that achieved that record without their most talented 1st team All-NBA performer, Jason Tatum, playing an old-fashioned, team-oriented, unselfish ball and player movement style that fans greatly appreciated. 

When Tatum returned a bit ahead of his rehab schedule from a serious Achilles injury, everyone was primed for a deep playoff run and possibly another chance for a Championship.

That wasn’t meant to be, and most of the feel-good vibe of that admired regular season was soon dissipated. 

As a longtime scout in the NBA, I couldn’t help but admire Brad Stevens and his staff’s recent astute draft and free agent signings that enabled such a surprising season.

A quick look at some of the main contributors to this 56-win year, minus the two established stars Jaylen Brown and Derrick White and their respective NBA Draft résumés:

1 - Payton Pritchard - 26th pick, 1st round

2 - Neemias Queta - 39th pick, 2nd round

3 - Sam Hauser - Undrafted

4 - Baylor Scheierman - 30th pick, 1st round

5 - Jordan Walsh - 38th pick, 2nd round

6 - Luka Garza - 52nd pick, 2nd round

7 - Hogo Gonzalez - 28th pick, 1st round

8 - Ron Harper Jr - Undrafted 
 

The point in highlighting this overachieving roster, as comprised by a combination of late 1st rounders(3), 2nd rounders(3), and undrafted(2) players, points to a GM and front office that has done an unbelievably great job in evaluating and acquiring under-the-radar talent - not to mention Brad Stevens’ hand in putting together the 2024 Championship roster under the previous ownership.

So is the Celtics brass, led by Stevens, owed the benefit of the doubt after trading the 2024 NBA Finals MVP? 

Well, let’s preface the “Devil’s Advocate” position by stating the obvious- that Jaylen Brown is a great basketball player who put up his own defense in the midst of intense trade rumors by stating:

“Nobody has won more combined regular season and playoff games since I entered the league 10 years ago.” 

Hard to argue with that, but now the onslaught of analytics enters the courtroom.

Bobby Marks, ESPN’s salary cap and analytics communicator, started the avalanche of the analytics pile-on by stating that an unnamed NBA analytics person told him that by their metrics, Jaylen Brown is rated as the 7th best player on your team. He was justifiably very sheepish in conveying that comment, obviously anticipating the backlash.

To continue in that vein, Tom Haberstroh of Yahoo Sports (Wednesday, July 1st), states: “When taking a closer look, an NBA observer would be hard pressed to find a player whose all-league accolades disagree more with his impact on the scoreboard.”

He goes on to reveal a key analytics component determining a player’s value - basically his plus minus numbers, which tell how well a team does when he's on the court vs when he’s off the court. 

His 1st piece of evidence is game 7 of the Philly playoff series, where Brown scored 33 points but was a minus-16 in the 40 minutes he played. The Celtics went on a 21-14 run when he was on the bench.

He continues his point by relaying that the analytics show this wasn’t an anomaly:

“The Celtics outscored opponents by 9.4. Points every 100 Possessions with Brown on the bench scoring a blistering 121.3 points per 100 possessions per pbpstats.com.” 

Those numbers declined when Brown’s high usage style entered the equation. He summarizes this point by saying that the Celtics' rate of outscoring opponents tumbled from 9.4 to 5.7 with Brown on the floor.

Finally, “The Celtics' average score margin every 100 possessions fell in each of the last 4 seasons with Brown on vs when he was off.”

Another interesting, though possibly deceiving, fact for the Celtics is their record the last four years when Jaylen Brown was unable to play is 47-10 (.825) - as Haberstroh mentions, is equivalent to a 68-win team and #1 seed.
 

I spoke to an analytics person with whom I worked for many years in Dallas, who, I was surprised, also chimed in on Jaylen Brown's analytics deficiencies, reiterating the high usage rate and defensive lapses when guarding off the ball.

In ending the Devil’s Advocate entries for the Celtics management decision, no one is more vociferous than former Phoenix and Dallas Mavericks scout, Jeremias Engelmann, who now writes for Royce Webb’s 5X5 Substack:

“No player in the NBA lowers the points that his teammates score, while on the court with him, more than Jaylen Brown. He lops off 4 points per 100 from each of the 4 teammates that share the court with him.” 

As I researched more and more into the NBA analytics world, I can understand why Jaylen Brown is at odds with them on social media. 

How much does the Celtics analytics department agree or disagree with these “experts” is anybody’s guess, and to what degree did any of these types of analysis factored into their decision to trade one of their star players is yet to be known. 

It was interesting to me that even during the negotiations to possibly trade Brown for Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Celtics were very upfront about letting it be known that the rookie Hugo Gonzalez was an untouchable.

Have the Celtics determined that his upside is enough to soon step into a lot more meaningful minutes at Brown’s position? Do they see Pritchard’s development enhanced with his relatively bargain basement contract, without Brown’s high usage rate?

How much does this trade have to do with the monetary considerations of the new collective bargaining agreement now in full swing, with all of the exponential “Apron” penalties kicking in at certain levels of roster spending? 

What we probably do know is that there is more to this trade than meets the eye - that soon, we’ll know more of a reason that a 29 year old NBA Finals MVP was traded for a 36 year old Paul George - a formerly great 2 way player, who the last 5 years averaged only playing in 47.8 games a season, with a history of injuries which would qualify him to play the Stubborn Black Knight in Monty Python’s the Holy Grail (when he famously said “Just a flesh wound” as his two arms were chopped off guarding a bridge) - broken leg, ligament knee operations, both shoulder operations, elbow operation, and most recently in 2024-25 season, arthroscopic surgery.

Why was there such an urgency to make the trade? Was there an analytics consensus in the league that played a role in the apparent shrinking of his market value? Were the Celtics afraid to keep Brown if they decided not to give him the new max extension he was eligible for later this month, with the resentment that might have caused? How healthy was the relationship between Tatum and Brown?

There are obviously a lot of internals that we are not privy to that will surely come to light as time goes on. 

The management crew, led by Brad Stevens, is a classy bunch and has earned at least the benefit of the doubt as more becomes known in time.