Jaylen Brown vs Eddie Jones

[Above The Rim]

Glad to see Eddie Jones getting love as an underrated 2-way player who was my favorite to use in video games from that era. I see the physical similarities as well. But Jaylen Brown is probably 2 good seasons away from being a 1st ballot HOFer. Eddie Jones didn’t have the automatic mid range turnaround against any defender that Jaylen has. I 100% thought that Jaylen was going to be closer to Eddie Jones type of career (and slightly worse shooter) during his first couple of seasons. But he made himself great.

[durantbird]

Glad to see Eddie Jones getting love as an underrated 2-way player who was my favorite to use in video games from that era. I see the physical similarities as well. But Jaylen Brown is probably 2 good seasons away from being a 1st ballot HOFer. Eddie Jones didn’t have the automatic mid range turnaround against any defender that Jaylen has. I 100% thought that Jaylen was going to be closer to Eddie Jones type of career (and slightly worse shooter) during his first couple of seasons. But he made himself great.

Isn't that situational though? How do Boston fair with Jones in Brown's place?

[Doctor MJ]

The one who was the best player on a title team last year.

I couldn't disagree more with the idea that Brown was the best player on that team. I get that he won the playoff awards so it makes sense people see Brown that way, but if I'm building a contender I want Tatum, White, or Holiday before I want Brown.

Would I take Tatum over Jones? Absolutely.
White or Holiday? Quite possibly.
Brown? If just about the luckiest guy in the NBA.

Shouts to Jaylen. I'll say I don't think Brown or White ever proved to be better than Jaylen. Both of these guys generally languished in mediocrity before coming to the celtics. Jrue holiday is overrated and was very very suboptimal whenever called upon to be No. 2 for giannis. It just so happens that now he gets to be like the most overqualified 5th option of all time. But jaylen is better than these guys.

But i do think Jaylen is probably overrated in the grand scheme of things. Bad passer, bad ballhandler. His occasional bad playoff series get overlooked (see him averaging 19 on 19 shots against the heat and a semi hampered jimmy butler in 2023). Solid volume scorer on average efficiency. Beats up on teams where he's always got the better squad and he's never doubled.

If he were on the pistons with cade cunningham they would miss the playoffs

I think your focus here is too focused on who is doing the scoring. I would consider Brown a better scorer than the other two, but worse and almost everything else, which is why they were chosen for the Olympic team over them.

Re: languished in mediocrity before the Celtics. Hmm.

For Holiday, I would consider his time prior to the Celtics to be much more accomplished than what Brown had done to that point. Far stronger defensive reputation, and his arrival on the Bucks had everything to do with why they broke through an won the championship.

Re: Holiday suboptimal when called to be the #2 for Giannis. Key points:

#1: He wasn't acquired to be the #2. He only ever played that role because either Giannis or Middleton was injured, which unfortunately was basically a constant thing.

#2: I think it's important to consider what a challenge it is to be an on-ball score with Giannis. Remember that the reason Giannis tends to play on-ball is not because he's the best passer, but because his lack of shooting makes him much less dangerous if he doesn't have the ball, and rather than develop an AD-style off-ball lob game, he's chosen a path that puts someone like freaking Dame Lillard in an off-ball role quite often.

The only reason that Brown is able to have the success he'd had as a scorer, is that defenses are first and foremost focused on the GOAT-level spacing the Celtics have, which has always been based on most of the guys on the court being stationed ready to hit 3's.

Consider what's happened to Ant this year in Minny when they replaced the spacing of KAT with clogging of Randle, and I would suggest that whatever issues Ant has, Brown would have worse.

Additionally, while many may not care about +/- stats, the reality is that Holiday & White (to say nothing of Tatum) have always been guys who look great by these stats whereas Brown is a guy with a career negative on-off.

[Doctor MJ]

Glad to see Eddie Jones getting love as an underrated 2-way player who was my favorite to use in video games from that era. I see the physical similarities as well. But Jaylen Brown is probably 2 good seasons away from being a 1st ballot HOFer. Eddie Jones didn’t have the automatic mid range turnaround against any defender that Jaylen has. I 100% thought that Jaylen was going to be closer to Eddie Jones type of career (and slightly worse shooter) during his first couple of seasons. But he made himself great.

I would suggest that the only reason Brown's on pace for the Hall is that he ended up in just the right place. If he's drafted basically anywhere else, good chance he never makes all-star.

[MiamiBulls]

Glad to see Eddie Jones getting love as an underrated 2-way player who was my favorite to use in video games from that era. I see the physical similarities as well. But Jaylen Brown is probably 2 good seasons away from being a 1st ballot HOFer. Eddie Jones didn’t have the automatic mid range turnaround against any defender that Jaylen has. I 100% thought that Jaylen was going to be closer to Eddie Jones type of career (and slightly worse shooter) during his first couple of seasons. But he made himself great.

Jaylen Brown isn't better than Eddie Jones on Offense or Defense. Brown is Medium Volume-Low Efficiency Scorer; currently over the last 3 Seasons he's averaging 26 pp 75 on -0.2% rTS in the Regular Season. In the Playoffs he's averaging 24 pp 75 on +0.2 rTS against his Defensive Opponents.

For Eddie Jones, when his career ended in 2008 was Top 35 All-Time in Career VORP whereas Brown objectively isn't even better than Derrick White. Jaylen Brown is one of those secondary low-end All Star-level players who gets overrated because of people's tendencies to overvalue Scoring Volume. Brown plays on stack teams and he's still a low efficiency scorer.

[Pelly24]

I couldn't disagree more with the idea that Brown was the best player on that team. I get that he won the playoff awards so it makes sense people see Brown that way, but if I'm building a contender I want Tatum, White, or Holiday before I want Brown.

Would I take Tatum over Jones? Absolutely.
White or Holiday? Quite possibly.
Brown? If just about the luckiest guy in the NBA.

Shouts to Jaylen. I'll say I don't think Brown or White ever proved to be better than Jaylen. Both of these guys generally languished in mediocrity before coming to the celtics. Jrue holiday is overrated and was very very suboptimal whenever called upon to be No. 2 for giannis. It just so happens that now he gets to be like the most overqualified 5th option of all time. But jaylen is better than these guys.

But i do think Jaylen is probably overrated in the grand scheme of things. Bad passer, bad ballhandler. His occasional bad playoff series get overlooked (see him averaging 19 on 19 shots against the heat and a semi hampered jimmy butler in 2023). Solid volume scorer on average efficiency. Beats up on teams where he's always got the better squad and he's never doubled.

If he were on the pistons with cade cunningham they would miss the playoffs

I think your focus here is too focused on who is doing the scoring. I would consider Brown a better scorer than the other two, but worse and almost everything else, which is why they were chosen for the Olympic team over them.

Re: languished in mediocrity before the Celtics. Hmm.

For Holiday, I would consider his time prior to the Celtics to be much more accomplished than what Brown had done to that point. Far stronger defensive reputation, and his arrival on the Bucks had everything to do with why they broke through an won the championship.

Re: Holiday suboptimal when called to be the #2 for Giannis. Key points:

#1: He wasn't acquired to be the #2. He only ever played that role because either Giannis or Middleton was injured, which unfortunately was basically a constant thing.

#2: I think it's important to consider what a challenge it is to be an on-ball score with Giannis. Remember that the reason Giannis tends to play on-ball is not because he's the best passer, but because his lack of shooting makes him much less dangerous if he doesn't have the ball, and rather than develop an AD-style off-ball lob game, he's chosen a path that puts someone like freaking Dame Lillard in an off-ball role quite often.

The only reason that Brown is able to have the success he'd had as a scorer, is that defenses are first and foremost focused on the GOAT-level spacing the Celtics have, which has always been based on most of the guys on the court being stationed ready to hit 3's.

Consider what's happened to Ant this year in Minny when they replaced the spacing of KAT with clogging of Randle, and I would suggest that whatever issues Ant has, Brown would have worse.

Additionally, while many may not care about +/- stats, the reality is that Holiday & White (to say nothing of Tatum) have always been guys who look great by these stats whereas Brown is a guy with a career negative on-off.

Yeah i wouldn't say Brown is better than prime Jrue per se, but IDK, I can't just ignore his solid scoring abiluty in the playoffs. Even if Jrue wasn't brought there to be a second option, it's just not a good situation when you have a 48 TS% in multiple playoff runs. He's a great defender, but in a vacuum, he is someone people would call out for missing the playoffs every year if he had his own team. As a No. 2 option, if he's you guy and your team isn't absolutely loaded, you're screwed. As a third or fourth option? You're cooking. The celtics haven't always been loaded to the extent they were last year. Jaylen was still playing good solid ball in the playoffs before that.

Jrue is good for his role, but if jaylen were replaced with an average wing and they needed Jrue to play his role, he would fail, and i think most evidence supports that.

Derrick White is someone who didn';t score at above average efficiency until he got to the celtics. In fact, he was usually below it. Mind you Jaylen has been on great teams his whole career. I think he's overrated. I think Ant is too (lol). But i'm just not convinced these guys are any better in a vacuum, because none of them have proven to be even true No. 2 options on contenders, they're like third and fourth options at best. But the celtics having multiple top 50 guys next to a top 10 guy with great coaching and a great organization does the trick.

[Doctor MJ]

Shouts to Jaylen. I'll say I don't think Brown or White ever proved to be better than Jaylen. Both of these guys generally languished in mediocrity before coming to the celtics. Jrue holiday is overrated and was very very suboptimal whenever called upon to be No. 2 for giannis. It just so happens that now he gets to be like the most overqualified 5th option of all time. But jaylen is better than these guys.

But i do think Jaylen is probably overrated in the grand scheme of things. Bad passer, bad ballhandler. His occasional bad playoff series get overlooked (see him averaging 19 on 19 shots against the heat and a semi hampered jimmy butler in 2023). Solid volume scorer on average efficiency. Beats up on teams where he's always got the better squad and he's never doubled.

If he were on the pistons with cade cunningham they would miss the playoffs

I think your focus here is too focused on who is doing the scoring. I would consider Brown a better scorer than the other two, but worse and almost everything else, which is why they were chosen for the Olympic team over them.

Re: languished in mediocrity before the Celtics. Hmm.

For Holiday, I would consider his time prior to the Celtics to be much more accomplished than what Brown had done to that point. Far stronger defensive reputation, and his arrival on the Bucks had everything to do with why they broke through an won the championship.

Re: Holiday suboptimal when called to be the #2 for Giannis. Key points:

#1: He wasn't acquired to be the #2. He only ever played that role because either Giannis or Middleton was injured, which unfortunately was basically a constant thing.

#2: I think it's important to consider what a challenge it is to be an on-ball score with Giannis. Remember that the reason Giannis tends to play on-ball is not because he's the best passer, but because his lack of shooting makes him much less dangerous if he doesn't have the ball, and rather than develop an AD-style off-ball lob game, he's chosen a path that puts someone like freaking Dame Lillard in an off-ball role quite often.

The only reason that Brown is able to have the success he'd had as a scorer, is that defenses are first and foremost focused on the GOAT-level spacing the Celtics have, which has always been based on most of the guys on the court being stationed ready to hit 3's.

Consider what's happened to Ant this year in Minny when they replaced the spacing of KAT with clogging of Randle, and I would suggest that whatever issues Ant has, Brown would have worse.

Additionally, while many may not care about +/- stats, the reality is that Holiday & White (to say nothing of Tatum) have always been guys who look great by these stats whereas Brown is a guy with a career negative on-off.

Yeah i wouldn't say Brown is better than prime Jrue per se, but IDK, I can't just ignore his solid scoring abiluty in the playoffs. Even if Jrue wasn't brought there to be a second option, it's just not a good situation when you have a 48 TS% in multiple playoff runs. He's a great defender, but in a vacuum, he is someone people would call out for missing the playoffs every year if he had his own team. As a No. 2 option, if he's you guy and your team isn't absolutely loaded, you're screwed. As a third or fourth option? You're cooking. The celtics haven't always been loaded to the extent they were last year. Jaylen was still playing good solid ball in the playoffs before that.

Jrue is good for his role, but if jaylen were replaced with an average wing and they needed Jrue to play his role, he would fail, and i think most evidence supports that.

Derrick White is someone who didn';t score at above average efficiency until he got to the celtics. In fact, he was usually below it. Mind you Jaylen has been on great teams his whole career. I think he's overrated. I think Ant is too (lol). But i'm just not convinced these guys are any better in a vacuum, because none of them have proven to be even true No. 2 options on contenders, they're like third and fourth options at best. But the celtics having multiple top 50 guys next to a top 10 guy with great coaching and a great organization does the trick.

So I think your choice of words says a lot about how you're approaching the conversation.

You're saying I'm "ignoring" Brown's superior scoring when rating other guys higher, and then finishing by talking about what option number they can be classified as.

I'd suggest that what you're effectively saying is that stuff like defense and playmaking is only relevant in ranking guys who you put into the same tier based on what scoring option you see them as.

And I'll say that that's something I actively try to fight against in my analysis.
Scoring impact is just one kind of impact, and thus it's possible for the worse scorer to be the better player.

Now when I phrase all this way, you can be forgiven for feeling like I'm putting words in your mouth. Feel free to speak to that yourself of course, but here's the thing:

I don't actually think you believe that scorer-based tiering thing down to the ground. I think you'd agree with the line I said that I put in bold in theory, you're just used to prioritizing high primacy guys like Brown above low primacy guys like White/Holiday, because that's what's typically done.

When I emphasize the Olympics, I'm not doing it to be snide, I think it's the point:

White, Holiday, and even Horford on a spry day are better at both:

a) being a role player than Jaylen Brown
b) being considerably better at their role (role player) than Brown is at his (star).

These qualitative statements don't necessarily mean they are better players than Brown, because that's all about how much of an edge each guy has along some feature of his game and how that all comes together. But they do make clear, I think, how a great role player can be more valuable than a mediocre volume scorer.

If you can acknowledge the general truth in this, but still favor Brown due to a more nuances, cool, please elaborate.

[BBallFreak]

Those claiming Eddie Jones as the better player forget one very important factor - clutch play. When it counted most, Jones was nowhere to be found. You can say he was the better player and point to whatever stat you want, but as someone who watched him try and take the lead of a team, I will take Jaylen Brown any day and twice on Sundays. He was absolutely infuriating to watch as a Heat fan. Just not that guy.

[FuShengTHEGreat]

Those claiming Eddie Jones as the better player forget one very important factor - clutch play. When it counted most, Jones was nowhere to be found. You can say he was the better player and point to whatever stat you want, but as someone who watched him try and take the lead of a team, I will take Jaylen Brown any day and twice on Sundays. He was absolutely infuriating to watch as a Heat fan. Just not that guy.

This! Spare me all the analytics i see posted by others here.....come playoff time he vanished and thats all that matters to me. Forget leading a team, he couldn't be counted on to even be a #2 option either despite being paired with prime Shaq.

He was even a worse at dribbling than Brown (who I've seen get criticized for his handle). He was lithe in frame and despite his quick first step opponent could physically keep him from attacking the rim/paint with any sort of consistency. Which left him often as a catch n shoot 3 point shooter where he was often ice cold (and I don't mean that as a compliment) at that when needed.

He was equally frustrating to watch in LA as well.

[Pelly24]

I think your focus here is too focused on who is doing the scoring. I would consider Brown a better scorer than the other two, but worse and almost everything else, which is why they were chosen for the Olympic team over them.

Re: languished in mediocrity before the Celtics. Hmm.

For Holiday, I would consider his time prior to the Celtics to be much more accomplished than what Brown had done to that point. Far stronger defensive reputation, and his arrival on the Bucks had everything to do with why they broke through an won the championship.

Re: Holiday suboptimal when called to be the #2 for Giannis. Key points:

#1: He wasn't acquired to be the #2. He only ever played that role because either Giannis or Middleton was injured, which unfortunately was basically a constant thing.

#2: I think it's important to consider what a challenge it is to be an on-ball score with Giannis. Remember that the reason Giannis tends to play on-ball is not because he's the best passer, but because his lack of shooting makes him much less dangerous if he doesn't have the ball, and rather than develop an AD-style off-ball lob game, he's chosen a path that puts someone like freaking Dame Lillard in an off-ball role quite often.

The only reason that Brown is able to have the success he'd had as a scorer, is that defenses are first and foremost focused on the GOAT-level spacing the Celtics have, which has always been based on most of the guys on the court being stationed ready to hit 3's.

Consider what's happened to Ant this year in Minny when they replaced the spacing of KAT with clogging of Randle, and I would suggest that whatever issues Ant has, Brown would have worse.

Additionally, while many may not care about +/- stats, the reality is that Holiday & White (to say nothing of Tatum) have always been guys who look great by these stats whereas Brown is a guy with a career negative on-off.

Yeah i wouldn't say Brown is better than prime Jrue per se, but IDK, I can't just ignore his solid scoring abiluty in the playoffs. Even if Jrue wasn't brought there to be a second option, it's just not a good situation when you have a 48 TS% in multiple playoff runs. He's a great defender, but in a vacuum, he is someone people would call out for missing the playoffs every year if he had his own team. As a No. 2 option, if he's you guy and your team isn't absolutely loaded, you're screwed. As a third or fourth option? You're cooking. The celtics haven't always been loaded to the extent they were last year. Jaylen was still playing good solid ball in the playoffs before that.

Jrue is good for his role, but if jaylen were replaced with an average wing and they needed Jrue to play his role, he would fail, and i think most evidence supports that.

Derrick White is someone who didn';t score at above average efficiency until he got to the celtics. In fact, he was usually below it. Mind you Jaylen has been on great teams his whole career. I think he's overrated. I think Ant is too (lol). But i'm just not convinced these guys are any better in a vacuum, because none of them have proven to be even true No. 2 options on contenders, they're like third and fourth options at best. But the celtics having multiple top 50 guys next to a top 10 guy with great coaching and a great organization does the trick.

So I think your choice of words says a lot about how you're approaching the conversation.

You're saying I'm "ignoring" Brown's superior scoring when rating other guys higher, and then finishing by talking about what option number they can be classified as.

I'd suggest that what you're effectively saying is that stuff like defense and playmaking is only relevant in ranking guys who you put into the same tier based on what scoring option you see them as.

And I'll say that that's something I actively try to fight against in my analysis.
Scoring impact is just one kind of impact, and thus it's possible for the worse scorer to be the better player.

Now when I phrase all this way, you can be forgiven for feeling like I'm putting words in your mouth. Feel free to speak to that yourself of course, but here's the thing:

I don't actually think you believe that scorer-based tiering thing down to the ground. I think you'd agree with the line I said that I put in bold in theory, you're just used to prioritizing high primacy guys like Brown above low primacy guys like White/Holiday, because that's what's typically done.

When I emphasize the Olympics, I'm not doing it to be snide, I think it's the point:

White, Holiday, and even Horford on a spry day are better at both:

a) being a role player than Jaylen Brown
b) being considerably better at their role (role player) than Brown is at his (star).

These qualitative statements don't necessarily mean they are better players than Brown, because that's all about how much of an edge each guy has along some feature of his game and how that all comes together. But they do make clear, I think, how a great role player can be more valuable than a mediocre volume scorer.

If you can acknowledge the general truth in this, but still favor Brown due to a more nuances, cool, please elaborate.

i think it's just a philosophical thing. Those guys are absolutely better than Brown is relative to his role in their roles.

I do value being able to score a lot on decent efficiency in the playoffs. I think you can put Jaylen on a team next to a Luka, Giannis, Kobe, prime CP3, etc. and you've got a solid contender provided the rest of the team is pretty good. I don't see that being the case for White or Holiday, so i rate them lower. I don't think we would hear anything about Derrick White if he were on the detroit pistons without Cade Cunningham. Maybe even with him. I think if Jaylen weren't drafted by the celtics, he'd quite possibly be a DeMar DeRozan-type of guy. Jrue ... he is a good player, but he's been in situations where his team's success isn't that remarkable. If he's your third option, great.

But yeah. To me, Jaylen Brown, is a lower-tier all-star in a vacuum. In their prime, i guess I'd put Holiday there too. Like a two-timer type guy. I don't think that's the case for Derrick White. Horford at his best was obviously better than Brown in a vacuum.

[prolific passer]

Jones would fit better in today's NBA than Brown currently does but Brown would be good in Jones era.

[flaco]

Brown is hands down a superior #1 option. That said, you aren't winning anything with Brown as your best player.

Brown is a superior #2 option. The 2024 Celtics have proven you can win with Brown being your #2, but they had a historically deep starting lineup with arguably the best 5th option of all time in Jrue, plus Horford off the bench prior to the Porzingis injury.

Jones is a superior #3+ option. I'd argue he's better than Brown at everything apart from scoring.

tl;dr
In a vacuum, Brown > Jones.
From a team building perspective, Jones > Brown.

[ShaqAttac]

I think it's at least close. But can you specify which versions of Brown are you taking ahead of prime Jones?

The one who was the best player on a title team last year.

I couldn't disagree more with the idea that Brown was the best player on that team. I get that he won the playoff awards so it makes sense people see Brown that way, but if I'm building a contender I want Tatum, White, or Holiday before I want Brown.

Would I take Tatum over Jones? Absolutely.
White or Holiday? Quite possibly.
Brown? If just about the luckiest guy in the NBA.

idk how tatum didnt get fmvp when he led in all the stats ppl care about. white or holiday over brown is crazy tho.

[Doctor MJ]

Those claiming Eddie Jones as the better player forget one very important factor - clutch play. When it counted most, Jones was nowhere to be found. You can say he was the better player and point to whatever stat you want, but as someone who watched him try and take the lead of a team, I will take Jaylen Brown any day and twice on Sundays. He was absolutely infuriating to watch as a Heat fan. Just not that guy.

The viewpoint of a Heat fan is important, but I would emphasize that what you're saying still falls into the category of:

Brown the better first scoring option.

Which isn't really being disagreed about.

[Doctor MJ]

Yeah i wouldn't say Brown is better than prime Jrue per se, but IDK, I can't just ignore his solid scoring abiluty in the playoffs. Even if Jrue wasn't brought there to be a second option, it's just not a good situation when you have a 48 TS% in multiple playoff runs. He's a great defender, but in a vacuum, he is someone people would call out for missing the playoffs every year if he had his own team. As a No. 2 option, if he's you guy and your team isn't absolutely loaded, you're screwed. As a third or fourth option? You're cooking. The celtics haven't always been loaded to the extent they were last year. Jaylen was still playing good solid ball in the playoffs before that.

Jrue is good for his role, but if jaylen were replaced with an average wing and they needed Jrue to play his role, he would fail, and i think most evidence supports that.

Derrick White is someone who didn';t score at above average efficiency until he got to the celtics. In fact, he was usually below it. Mind you Jaylen has been on great teams his whole career. I think he's overrated. I think Ant is too (lol). But i'm just not convinced these guys are any better in a vacuum, because none of them have proven to be even true No. 2 options on contenders, they're like third and fourth options at best. But the celtics having multiple top 50 guys next to a top 10 guy with great coaching and a great organization does the trick.

So I think your choice of words says a lot about how you're approaching the conversation.

You're saying I'm "ignoring" Brown's superior scoring when rating other guys higher, and then finishing by talking about what option number they can be classified as.

I'd suggest that what you're effectively saying is that stuff like defense and playmaking is only relevant in ranking guys who you put into the same tier based on what scoring option you see them as.

And I'll say that that's something I actively try to fight against in my analysis.
Scoring impact is just one kind of impact, and thus it's possible for the worse scorer to be the better player.

Now when I phrase all this way, you can be forgiven for feeling like I'm putting words in your mouth. Feel free to speak to that yourself of course, but here's the thing:

I don't actually think you believe that scorer-based tiering thing down to the ground. I think you'd agree with the line I said that I put in bold in theory, you're just used to prioritizing high primacy guys like Brown above low primacy guys like White/Holiday, because that's what's typically done.

When I emphasize the Olympics, I'm not doing it to be snide, I think it's the point:

White, Holiday, and even Horford on a spry day are better at both:

a) being a role player than Jaylen Brown
b) being considerably better at their role (role player) than Brown is at his (star).

These qualitative statements don't necessarily mean they are better players than Brown, because that's all about how much of an edge each guy has along some feature of his game and how that all comes together. But they do make clear, I think, how a great role player can be more valuable than a mediocre volume scorer.

If you can acknowledge the general truth in this, but still favor Brown due to a more nuances, cool, please elaborate.

i think it's just a philosophical thing. Those guys are absolutely better than Brown is relative to his role in their roles.

I do value being able to score a lot on decent efficiency in the playoffs. I think you can put Jaylen on a team next to a Luka, Giannis, Kobe, prime CP3, etc. and you've got a solid contender provided the rest of the team is pretty good. I don't see that being the case for White or Holiday, so i rate them lower. I don't think we would hear anything about Derrick White if he were on the detroit pistons without Cade Cunningham. Maybe even with him. I think if Jaylen weren't drafted by the celtics, he'd quite possibly be a DeMar DeRozan-type of guy. Jrue ... he is a good player, but he's been in situations where his team's success isn't that remarkable. If he's your third option, great.

But yeah. To me, Jaylen Brown, is a lower-tier all-star in a vacuum. In their prime, i guess I'd put Holiday there too. Like a two-timer type guy. I don't think that's the case for Derrick White. Horford at his best was obviously better than Brown in a vacuum.

So, I do see room for philosophical disagreement here if we can acknowledge that Brown's a better scorer, the other guys are better at the rest of the game, and because you think Brown is good enough to beta on a champ, that makes him the piece you'd prioritize in NBA team building.

Further, I understand a perspective where someone says, "Sure, on a Team USA level team there's no pace for a beta as bad as Brown, but they still need role players as good as White & Holiday, but if we're doing an NBA based comparison, Brown is good enough to function as a beta, and so he takes the comparison."

My contrasting perspective then would be that I think it's easier to find scorers like Brown than it is to find off-ball playmakers on both sides of the ball like White & Holiday.

Re: Jaylen next to Luka/Giannis/Kobe/CP3. So, it doesn't feel to me like you're really trying to reckon with Brown's off-ball limitations here, and these are the things I've been trying to focus attention on.

Re: solid contender provided the rest of the team is pretty good. What I would say is that the Celtics might be the best team from 3 on down that we've ever seen, and while you may think "pretty good" would be enough in order for Brown to thrive in the role, I would say that we've not seen Brown in a situation where a) the cast has been as bad as "pretty good" and also b) the team is true contender.

To put it another way: I think there are multiple situations where Big 2's around the league would win titles in Tatum/Brown's place, but I really don't think Tatum/Brown win a title with any other group of role players. And to be clear, while Tatum isn't the best #1 option in the league, I also think there are a number of other guys who could be swapped in for Brown and the Celtics are still champs right now.

Re: don't think we'd hear about White in Cunningham's place. Agree, but same for Brown.

Re: Brown a DeRozan-level guy not on Celtics. Oh I think DeRozan can put up more impressive scoring numbers than Brown in most situations, including on the Celtics. I prefer Brown because he's a 2-way player who is willing to shoot 3's at a reasonable volume for a modern perimeter player.

Re: Horford at best obviously better than Brown. Interesting because you're not just putting Horford above Brown but the other guys. Criticisms of Holiday tend to focus on his struggles when call upon for high volume, but he's been a higher volume guy than Horford just as par for the course in their career. I feel like you're trying to be magnanimous to Horford here letting Brown be the superior Celtic now while not knocking peak Horford, but I would actually argue that Horford's been more valuable offensively in the latter half of his career than he was back in his all-star days. He was of course more physically capable back then which helped on defense, but I wouldn't say he ever had the kind of respect on defense that Holiday has long had.

[mikejames23]

I don't really get the Jaylen Brown criticism. Good resume with playoff performances, winning and steady all star AS. He even sometimes get credit for outplaying Tatum. His defense isn't bad.

I would say he played at a top 10ish level in the playoffs last year. Def. a good player to have on any title contender.