Jaylen Brown is the best player in the world — and the second-best on the Celtics

Welcome to the 2024 SAT examination introduced by the Faculty Board! This 12 months, in an try to enchantment to right this moment’s youth, the long-essay immediate might seem unusual to some readers. Nevertheless, we consider it’s going to assist us extra pretty consider all college students. Thanks, and good luck!

PROMPT: Is Jaylen Brown the very best participant on the planet and the second-best on his personal group?

Simply kidding, this isn’t the actual SAT neither is it a dream triggered by repressed stress from years in the past if you had been making use of to varsity. However after I develop into president of the world, I’ll make this the lengthy essay query on each standardized check. Your capacity to reply it represents greater than your IQ or the effectiveness of curriculum; it unpacks your psychological flexibility, your worldview, and your capacity to suppose critically about basketball gamers that don’t make plenty of sense.

Nevertheless it’s nonetheless a sure or no query, which suggests you can presumably reply, “no, he’s not. Why would you even ask that, you moron?” This response would rating poorly on the check and can be objectively fallacious. Brown is certainly the very best participant on the planet, and positively the second-best participant on the Boston Celtics. There can be no alternatives to revise your reply.

Within the curiosity of educational honesty, this text will act as a solution key, and hopefully additionally educate us why Brown is probably the most attention-grabbing participant in basketball, and why we might by no means fairly determine him out.

First issues first, when answering this query, one should add the necessary nuance that Brown is just the very best participant on the planet to some individuals. This in no way falsifies the reply, as shutting out those that disagree with you is a basic a part of being alive. Politics, good friend teams and nuclear households couldn’t exist with out this idea. However why just some individuals?

Nicely, within the suite of choices for figuring out who the very best participant within the NBA is, three shine by way of the remaining: league MVP, online-popular consensus, and NBA Finals MVP. Which one you subscribe to will rely in your basic opinion of how necessary successful is when answering this query. The league MVP and on-line consensus choose is at present Nikola Jokic, however he misplaced within the second spherical.

If you happen to’re extra old-fashioned or simply refuse any knowledge that isn’t “rings,” maybe NBA Finals MVP can be your choose. This not often matches up with the opposite two classes, however it will probably occur! In 2019, Kawhi Leonard grabbed the Finals MVP trophy on the Toronto Raptors and located the “greatest participant on the planet” award hidden inside it like a type of Russian nesting dolls. After that run, it was simply plain. Saying the Finals MVP merely equals “greatest participant on the planet” isn’t a very refined argument, but it surely kinda sorta nearly completely all the time works.

It’s a extremely efficient argument to make, nonetheless annoying. Saying “an important participant on the group that gained the Finals” is a extremely onerous argument to beat, as anybody within the group chat who says there’s something extra necessary than successful is instantly clowned as a faux sports activities fan who ought to return to Loserville.

Arguing for the significance of “successful” in sports activities is advocating for veterans in politics. Mother and apple pie. Sunshine and lollipops. Nobody alive dislikes veterans, and any candidate accused of mistreating them is branded as the largest jerk possible. It may be a bit morally simplistic, but it surely’s positively not fallacious, so basing your worldview on “successful” is completely fantastic for this query.

As long as we’re being sufficiently cussed, Jaylen Brown is the very best participant on the planet when in comparison with all different NBA gamers. In line with the historical past books, he was an important participant within the 2024 NBA Finals. That’s the newest Finals, so bam-bam, thank-you-ma’am on half one.

As for half two, sure, Brown can be the second-best participant on the Celtics behind Jayson Tatum. Many, many, many individuals have advised me, wrote me, texted me, commented-at me, known as me or telepathically communicated to me that comparability is the thief of enjoyable and that I ought to simply “get pleasure from each guys” with out worrying about which one is best. And similar to the opposite 400 instances, I categorically refuse.

That mindset is an outrageously boring approach to have a look at sports activities. Merely residing in denial about the necessity to make comparisons isn’t going to cease others from making them, and NBA historical past has proven {that a} coherent understanding of everybody’s position on a group is important to success. Prefer it or not, “greatest participant” is a type of roles.

I don’t want to dwell on why Tatum is best than Brown, since I’ve made the identical argument for six consecutive years and have virtually no real interest in making it once more. Tatum is a extra dynamic participant with fewer limitations, and has confirmed that he could be the centerpiece of an NBA offense in any respect three ranges whereas dominating the ball. Brown has performed plenty of that, however has struggled with consistency, ball safety and playmaking in methods Tatum merely has not.

There are arguments that Brown is best, particularly if you wish to simply throw my Finals MVP logic proper again in my face. However I don’t discover that as attention-grabbing when evaluating two guys on the group that simply gained, and is way simpler to falsify by saying Tatum missed out on the award by one vote. I additionally didn’t use a single statistic to show that nor do I plan to, as I believe a holistic understanding of a gamers’ recreation is simpler when attempting to ask, merely, “who’s higher?” as a number of knowledge and numbers make Karl Malone the very best participant in NBA historical past which, like, shouldn’t be true in any respect.

I additionally surprise if Brown truly desires to be the very best participant on the planet or on the Celtics. I can go bananas on a Google Doc attempting to persuade you that he’s, however within the immortal phrases of my good friend Tom each time we’d be watching a sporting occasion and his group can be on the point of successful: “you gotta need it!”

Being the “greatest” is so much like successful an Academy Award. It’s purported to all goal and analytical, but it surely’s actually only a political marketing campaign and a recognition contest. Tatum positively desires it, and has made it clear for years he desires to go down as one of many all-time greats and to be the face of the NBA in a post-LeBron James world. He’s in Gatorade and SoFi commercials, already has three signature sneakers with Jordan and went on The Tonight Present with Jimmy Fallon to advertise his youngsters’s e book. He’s an unimaginable basketball participant and a public man who desires to be well-known. There’s nothing fallacious with that, and it’s made him simpler to see as “the very best.”

However I all the time really feel like Brown is skeptical of all that. He covers up the logos on his sneakers, has his personal customized attire line and spends the summer time touring the world and seeing what the world has to supply. It hasn’t lent itself to the simplistic definitions of “the very best” like Tatum’s story has, however perhaps that’s much more admirable. Brown hasn’t drunk the Kool-Support of the NBA’s company construction, and refuses to be outlined by the labels of others earlier than him.

That’s why he’s my favourite participant, each within the league and on the Celtics. He’s simply probably the most attention-grabbing, probably the most particular person and so in contrast to everybody round him. Brown is the very best and Tatum is best. However I’ve seen Jayson Tatums earlier than and can see them once more. I doubt I’ll ever see one other Jaylen Brown.