All-Star. All-NBA. Jap Convention Finals MVP. Finals MVP. Champion. Jaylen Brown has achieved nearly the whole lot an NBA participant can dream of after they begin their profession. A uncooked prospect out of Cal, JB is a paragon of talent and participant improvement. Each time 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 respectable level. It’s, in different phrases, precisely like the whole lot else I write. I deliver 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 reduce down on his turnovers. Effectively, 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 turned 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 turned a high-volume star.
Jaylen Brown is a downhill attacker. He’s at his greatest when he will get into the tooth of the protection, normally off the dribble. That can also be the turnover zone. Defenders collapse, they swarm, they usually attempt to fill passing lanes. Jaylen has had hassle down there, till this season.
Limiting turnovers is among the harder abilities to grasp. It’s a fantastic line between lowering their frequency with out it impacting your strengths and aggressiveness. He’s achieved these leads to two methods. First, he’s taking part in off of two ft 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 go.
He additionally improved as a post-up participant, particularly within the playoffs, usually turning onerous drive alternatives into managed and affected person submit 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 moving into the paint and taking part in at his tempo and dictating the protection. He’s sturdy sufficient, athletic sufficient, and proficient sufficient that he doesn’t must drive something.
That is simply one other reflection of who Jaylen Brown is as a basketball participant and an individual. It takes a mature, assured character to realize what Jaylen has — to really settle for his weaknesses, face them head on, and finally conquer them.
Jaylen’s recreation nonetheless isn’t excellent, however once you get to the place he’s, enchancment turns into a sequence of nit-picks, like that strict English professor that at all times 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 comparable utilization.
Whereas he turned in a legendary on-ball defensive playoff run, he’s nonetheless acquired points off-ball. Like the whole lot with Jaylen, he’s slowly eroded this weak spot by way of sheer drive 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 of an excessive amount of, usually the one Celtic spinning round searching 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 sort 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 respiration it in a 12 months or two.
Even when Jaylen doesn’t enhance on what he’s proper now, we already know an important factor about his recreation: he’s adequate to be a champion and adequate to be one of the best participant in an NBA Finals. The strain is off Jaylen to enhance, however that in all probability received’t cease him.
