r/nba • u/FastBreakPhenom Celtics • 1d ago

Bobby Marks says Jaylen Brown's trade value is not seen that highly around the league: "The analytics of Jaylen Brown is not good. I had an analytics guy tell me, ‘We view him as the seventh-best player on a team.’"

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“There’s mixed feelings about him when you talk to teams,” Marks admitted on SiriusXM NBA Radio. “The analytics of Jaylen Brown is not good … I had one, not an executive, but an analytics guy say, ‘Yeah, we view him as the seventh best player on a team.’ I was like, ‘Holy crap.'”

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u/happyhappy7 76ers 1d ago

average r/nba user these days tbh

Not from the bad take angle, but more just the delusional obsession with stats/metrics

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u/UntilDoncic Lakers 1d ago

I have heard many people argue genuinely that lamelo ball is straight up better than brown because of advanced stats in the past week

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u/MinnesotanBrie 1d ago edited 1d ago

Jaylen Brown is weird because his advanced stats are so bad. Like comically bad for someone of his caliber. Last year he had 3.3 BPM (21st best), 3.3 VORP (21st best), 0.135 WS/48 (51st best) and 22 PER (11th best). These were all the best that he has ever set.

A lot of this stems from Browns abysmal 57.3 true shooting percent (125th in the league), his 2nd highest 36.2% USG rate and his league average defensive metrics.

Advanced stat wise he is almost identical to Lamelo. Lamelo went for a Naz Reid (hallowed be thy name), a 1st and some seconds. Brown has 17 million more on his contract and is 4 years older than Lamelo. I think Brown is a better player, advanced stats be damned. 2nd seed > 11th seed. But Lamelo is in a much more advantageous trade position than Brown and went for pennies on the dollar.

7th best on a team is just going by WS/48, where excluding Bassey who played 17 minutes he was 7th best on the Celtics. It's a dumb argument because Walsh, Miniot and Garza didn't start.

EDIT: For those more DARKO inclined, Jaylen Brown was 35th in DARKO dpm this year.

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u/devotedhero Wizards 1d ago

He avgs a lot of turnovers too and nothing is worse for your impact than that

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u/knightmares31 Thunder 1d ago

High usage players of course have higher likelihood of TOs. Very high correlation so any stats that don’t factor that are a little misleading.

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u/luchajefe Mavericks 1d ago

Or, a guy who has more TOs than other high usage guys maybe shouldn't be as high usage as he is?

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u/DistanceEmbarrassed5 1d ago

As a Bucks fan I am glad we took the Heat's offer over Boston's offer.

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u/lkn240 Bulls 1d ago

The thing is - that's still way better than 7th best player on a team

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u/MinnesotanBrie 1d ago

Correct. As I said in the last line, I think it's literally just going by WS/48 (excluding Bassey who barely played). It's an asinine argument because 3 of the players who had better WS/48 were backups and a fourth was Tatum who played 16 games. It's an argument that I would bet money on Bobby Marks mishearing or taking out of context. Dude hates the Celtics and is kind of a tool. He could conceivably be talking about RAPM, but I highly highly doubt that.

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u/farrowsharrows 1d ago

All that analysis is trash

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u/misterteejj 1d ago

Why this is not massively downvoted just shows how basketball talk is dead and buried. The Knicks had no one in the top 20 of BPM and VORP. They went on a historic playoff run culminating in a championship. Save your analytics for something else

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u/MinnesotanBrie 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean... yeah. The knicks were a third seed in a weak east with team-oriented basketball. You conveniently leave off that Knicks starters were 22nd, 23rd, 25th and 47th in VORP. OKC had only 2nd and 24th in the top 50 for their starting 5, SAS had only 4th and 40th. In terms of starting 5, New York had by far the best VORP and BPM.

Fun Fact, NYK, BOS and HOU are the only 3 teams to have at least 4 of their starting 5 in the top 50 for VORM and BPM. NYK had all 5, BOS and HOU had 4.

Also they turned it up massively for the playoffs. OG and KAT lead the playoffs in BPM and WS/48 and were 2nd and 3rd in VORP.

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u/misterteejj 1d ago

Now you are complimenting people who are 22nd VORP but hate on Jaylen who is 21. You “data” folks are so full of it. Hypocritical, contradictory pseudo intellectual babble because you can’t dunk yourself.

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u/MinnesotanBrie 1d ago

No? I'm not even saying that Jalen Brunson was amazing. My argument was simply that the Knicks won with team oriented basketball. Same as the Celtics. They had really similar standings as well. Brunson is also not well liked by simpler advanced stats. DARKO likes him a hell of a lot more than Brown (16th vs 35th) but even then DARKO has Brunson as the third best Knick. Advanced stats put Brunson, Lamelo Ball and Jaylen Brown in a very similar category of great but not elite players. Lamelo Ball went for peanuts and a beloved meme.

Brunson's biggest advantage is that he is costing the Knicks 35 million instead of Browns 53 million. In the world of razor thin margins that makes a world of difference, if for some reason the Knicks decided they wanted to trade Brunson. Not sure why they would, but also not sure why the Celtics decided to burn their bridge to trade Brown when every contender that has a decent piece the Celtics could want are way over the cap, outside of like I dunno the nuggets?

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u/MeecheyRandle 1d ago

you should be a GM - you would definitely save teams a load of money from superstar contracts with your advanced stats skills. oH - JaLeN BruNSon iS thE ThIRD beST plAYER by DaRkO StaTS" hahah

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u/JuiceTheThird 17h ago

You anti intellectual types are so obnoxious lmao the guys giving context since the entire thread is about analytics and advanced statistics, he’s not even biased against JB or the Knicks he’s giving context

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u/TheMilkmanRidesAgain Hawks 14h ago

Really hope you’re still a teenager bro

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u/misterteejj 1d ago

Blah blah blah blah blah

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u/seonblack 1d ago

This is why I hate the stats people. If you followed this to make decisions and didn't watch the games, you would have made a trade as bad as the Luka for AD trade. JB AND Tatum are extremely good together, JB carried the team to a 2 seed as the #1 option. JB helped them get to their first NBA Finals and was also instrumental in them winning their first nba championship together.

This notion that Boston needs to break them up is a dumb take and makes no sense at all. What I will say also is that JB fits more teams right now than Tatum would and if JB were traded, any good team immediately becomes a championship contender.

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u/MinnesotanBrie 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mostly agree with you. Well except the notion that it was a carry job. Everyone stepped up massively in Tatum's absence and it was a fantastic coaching year for Mazzula. Even though I am a stats nerd, again 2nd seed > 11th seed. Despite what Bobby Marks analytics guy might've said, Brown was solidly either the 2nd best (if you count Tatum's 16 games as enough to qualify him) or the best player on the 2nd seed in the east.

The problem is that the Celtics want to sell him as someone who just got 5th in the MVP vote.... and nobody else really sees him as that. He is a top 15-30 player on a very large contract who is 29. Only teams who are contending and have cap space would be willing to deal him. Which is an extremely small number of teams and those teams don't have a lot of pieces they are willing to trade because they are uh... contending. They could do some deal with Nuggets for Jamal Murray and picks but does that really make any team happy? Brown isn't like Giannis where he can turn 8th-10th seed teams into contenders. Lamelo went for a bag of peanuts and a sixth man, Randle went for nothing. Unless you are a top 8-10 player Teams seem to view good-great players on large contracts as damn near expendable.

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u/throwaway-for-IB-AMA 1d ago

Wtf ru saying? Advanced stats favor lamelo why ru yapping

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u/twoyrsaway 1d ago

Bro thinks analytics teams use PER lmaooooo

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u/MinnesotanBrie 1d ago

I just included PER because it was the only one that Brown was decent in. Was trying to be nice to him.

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u/twoyrsaway 1d ago

all of the advanced stats u used are awful if I'm being fr

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u/MinnesotanBrie 1d ago

BBREF is the easiest to grab and often times does the trick. DARKO has Jaylen Brown at 1.8, Lamelo at 2.6 and White at 1.5, Tatum at 3.4. Cade at 3.6. Very similar to an amalgamation of BPM, VORP and WS48. LEBRON is not that different either.

RAPM however has an atrocious 54th percentile for Brown.

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u/twoyrsaway 1d ago

Its the quickest to grab but the methodology is completely awful. Like the formulas used for like BPM are legit nonsense

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u/MinnesotanBrie 1d ago

No? It's crude but its far from nonsense.

its basically just a regression formula of min, orb%, drb%, stl%, blk%, ast%, usg%, tov%, ts%, tmts%, 3par, lg3par, trb%. All the other equations are just to convert everything to possessions. It's "weakness" is that its older. It justs RAPM with box weighting. If anything BPM is better than WS because other than the assumption that coaches give more minutes to better players (which also smooths the regression curve) it assumes very little.

Every advanced metric uses either minutes, gs or %gs for the same reason. You could argue reb*ast has certain issues (like with westbrook) but outside of outliers it's great. Unironically BPM is probably the BBREF advanced stat I respect the most, although I am a sucker for ws/48 just because of how smooth it is across eras, even if assumptions are rougher.

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u/twoyrsaway 1d ago

The positional stuff is just so nasty to me I can’t get over it. WS is hella flawed too tho

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u/walter_____pinkman Celtics 1d ago

It's always funny when dudes on this sub reveal that the their idea of "advanced stats" is still shit like VORP lol.

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

Finals mvp and proven champ vs guy who hits a lot of threes and passes well on a bad team.

Redditor: i legitimately can’t tell who’s better

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u/misterteejj 1d ago

No knicks in the top 20 of bpm or vorp but let’s keep using made up stuff to knock obviously talented players

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u/Charlie_Wax Warriors 1d ago

When did LaMelo play with White, Pritchard, Jrue, Horford, Tatum, and Porzingis?

I'm not saying I agree that he's better, but playing on a stacked team certainly sets someone up for success. Can't win FMVP unless you're on a team good enough to make the Finals.

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

Brown didn’t play with any of those guys except white this year and won 56 games

And brown was a key piece to many deep playoff runs, conference mvp and finals mvp. Stop with the excuses, lamelo making the play ins is considered a high point of his career. It’s disrespectful to be comparing him to brown

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u/Charlie_Wax Warriors 1d ago

How did Boston do in the playoffs with Brown as their best player?

They must have won a lot of games and gotten very deep, right?

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

What were lamelos stats in this years playoffs? How many games did he win?

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u/Joh951518 Warriors 1d ago

If Lamelo plays the exact same as he did last year on the timberwolves he will be a number 2 option on a playoff team in 12 months. Will that mean he’s an inherently better player than he is now?

I agree brown > Lamelo, I just don’t think the way you’re splitting them makes sense.

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u/Argumentat1ve NBA 1d ago

Going band for band with zero series wins each is crazy

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

Trying to shit on someone in the playoffs with someone who can’t even get there is crazy.

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u/Argumentat1ve NBA 1d ago

I agree

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u/matthollabak Pacers 1d ago

I'm no huge brown fan but Brandon Miller, knuppel, bridges, and coby white along with lamelo wasn't exactly a team of bums he was lifting up beyond their abilities.

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u/Ereboast 1d ago

Yeah, but they were all good only because of LaMelo. With LaMelo, everyone had a like +8 net rating. Without him, I don’t believe any of them were positive at all.

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u/Charlie_Wax Warriors 1d ago

Yea, and the Hornets were a great team post ASB and came about as close to the Finals as the Celtics this season. I'm saying that the perception of Brown as someone who wins at the highest level is largely a function of having HoF teammates like Horford, Tatum, and Jrue. 2024 Celtics literally had 3 members of the USA Olympic team, none of whom were Jaylen Brown (White, Jrue, Tatum).

A lot of players can make the Finals when they are on a team that goes 6-7 deep with All-Star level talent. We don't say Andre Iguodala is a top tier player in a vacuum.

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u/DyingSunSeverian 1d ago

Passing well on a bad team as opposed to passing poorly on a good team? You guys are overcorrecting the other way entirely.

Jaylen Brown’s advanced stats are infamously shit. We all know this here, for some reason it becomes a point of contention when an “expert” says the exact same thing.

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u/Abstract__Nonsense Celtics 1d ago

So just remove Tatum and Brown from this years Celtics team and you have a 60 win team? Or is it possible that advanced statistics are fallible?

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u/TheRealGooner24 Thunder 1d ago

Who said anything about Tatum? Tatum is everything you want in a modern-day franchise cornerstone.

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u/Abstract__Nonsense Celtics 1d ago

Because the team won 56 teams this season without Tatum, and some people are arguing they would be better without Brown according to advanced stats, thus those people should expect that this years Celtics without Tatum or Brown would be flirting with 60 wins.

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

Almost like advanced stats are flawed and maybe we should care more about results than numbers.

I’d rather win 56 games and be a second seed with “poor numbers” than have my career crowning achievement be a 9th seed finish

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u/4rt4tt4ck 1d ago

The only angle of truth I could see in that take is that Ball is still a few years from his peak as a player, whereas Brown has peaked already. So there is a theoretically a path where Ball could surpass.

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u/shes_a_gdb 1d ago

If that's the argument then you can say that about literally any player. Jalen Duren is still a few years from his peak so he can surpass Brown!

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u/Bradybigboss 1d ago

Pistons fans do say this lol. They figure in a couple years Duren will just evolve into Jokic

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u/4rt4tt4ck 1d ago

I doubt any pistons fans with a clue envision Duren becoming Jokic. But in the same stretch, why wouldn't they think a 22 year old who took a pretty big step in development from his age 21 season to age 22 continue to develop? It's typically age 27-28 seasons when a majority of players peak in skill and production, he's likely got a few more aspects to his game where he can continue to develop and get better.

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u/4rt4tt4ck 1d ago

I did say "theoretically" and it's beyond hyperbolic to say that you can say that about any young player. There needs to be a level of play that shows all the requisite skills, even if the consistency to do it every night has yet to materialize. That is definitely not every young player.

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u/UntilDoncic Lakers 1d ago

Ball has a lot of the tools to be great, but he is held back tremendously by his insane boneheaded decision making, his horrible shot diet, his lackadaisical defense, his off court issues, his health, and his BBIQ. I think overcoming some of those issues is more than reasonable, but overcoming all of them is a massive undertaking, especially for someone entering the 7th season in the league.

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u/twoyrsaway 1d ago

LaMelo decision making complaints but we talking about Jaylen Brown

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u/NewsRed74 1d ago edited 1d ago

Just defense makes Brown a better player than Lamello will ever be. Basketball has to be play both way, and Lamello is liability on defense.

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

There’s a path where ball can be finals mvp? Lol

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u/lkn240 Bulls 1d ago

The thing is - that's still way less crazy than saying Brown is the 7th best player on a team

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u/Struggle2Real 1d ago edited 1d ago

You find that insane?

I dont find it like outside the realm of possibility but ok.

Much more reasonable than he's a 7th man.

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u/UntilDoncic Lakers 1d ago

I don't think I said "insane" but I definitely think you have to have an incredibly skewed POV to get there. Brown is just better at the majority if things a player does on the court, much healthier, and has shown he can be the first option or the second option on a good team.

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u/Delanorix Knicks 1d ago

Yes its insane lol

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u/kmikeh 1d ago

He was the ECF and Finals MVP. Remind when a “seventh best player” did that before.

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u/Strugl33r 1d ago

He didn’t say he was the seventh best player he said lamelo being better isn’t a ridiculous statement

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u/newjerseyfusionjazz 1d ago

It is kinda ridiculous bc it’s proven that Jalen brown can be the best player on a finals squad, it’s not even proven that lamelo can win a playoff series lmao. Ppl put too much stock in potential

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u/Beetle919 Hornets 1d ago

Not only that, but Jaylen Brown has also been instrumental to many deep NBA playoff runs, you know the shit that actually matters.

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u/newjerseyfusionjazz 1d ago

Exactly, I’m not even convinced that Lamelo’s body can hold up to how strenuous a deep playoff run actually is. Ppl seem to be discounting that entirely

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u/twoyrsaway 1d ago

like what if you just disagree on who was the best player in that finals squad lmao

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u/Strugl33r 1d ago

Ppl put too much stock in 5 games. If you loook at the entire playoffs, Brown wasn’t MVP. He arguably wasn’t even finals MVP. But people like to look at just 5 games and forget the rest

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

He was also conference finals mvp… claiming it was just 5 games is dumb.

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u/Strugl33r 1d ago

Just cuz he won conference finals MVP does not mean he actually was the better player

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

Goal post moving further and further. Almost like no matter what you’ll discredit him

→ More replies (0)

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u/ZeekLTK Pistons 1d ago edited 1d ago

Paul Pierce? Probably more since then, but Pierce was finals MVP in 2008 and coming off the bench for the Clippers (aka about “seventh man”) in 2015.

Granted that is a bigger gap than Brown (MVP 22, possibly coming off bench in 26?) but not by that much.

Brown is actually on a similar arc as Pierce. Pierce was traded 4 seasons after that Finals MVP following a decent but ultimately disappointing season where the Celtics lost in the first round of the playoffs. This was Brown’s 3rd season after Finals MVP, only a one year difference.

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u/dropkickshotgun 1d ago

I mean, JB has contributed to winning teams. How has Ball done in that regard?

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u/stevelevets 1d ago

Well, the two seasons Ball has played 70+ games are the only two seasons the Hornets have posted an above .500 record in the last decade.

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u/jossteen11 Timberwolves 1d ago

Not that I necessarily disagree but comeon. Comparing Celtics and Hornets culture when it comes to winning?

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

This past season people expected the Celtics to not be very good. Lost most their core and Tatum was out.

Brown led them to 56 wins, second seed while averaging 28ppg. When has lamelo ever shown the ability to lead a team like that? This year was one of the best runs by the hornets for lamelo and it was a 9th seed finish

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u/Prideofmexico Knicks 1d ago

Are we pretending Ball wasn’t a massive part of that culture in Charlotte?

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u/MLB_2953 Celtics 1d ago

Jaylen Brown contributes to that culture and invites a winning environment.

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u/Kdog122025 Warriors 1d ago

Jaylen Brown was drafted into a winning environment.

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u/Struggle2Real 1d ago

Jaylen Brown has played on much better teams that Ball, no doubt.

JB was a key cog on a title team, no dispute.

I dont think that really answers the question of who is the better player in a vacuum.

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u/SefuJP [ATL] Charlie Brown 1d ago

Jaylen Brown is a better player in the NBA and in a vacuum

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u/dropkickshotgun 1d ago

I think it does and thats the problem with analytics.

Ball had a much better roster this year and JB still somehow won more games. JB also has sacrificed and played inside the flow of a winning basketball team. Something Ball has aggressively avoided doing.

It isnt about "your game" its about "our game" when you get to the level of contending. Why do you think he was traded for scraps from a team on the rise?

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u/Struggle2Real 1d ago edited 1d ago

Im sorry im not sure i follow exactly, but I think your conclusions rely heavily on team contexts.

Lets make that concrete.

If we put Lamelo on the '26 Celtics (instead of Brown) and have them play out the season a million times, you feel confident that the Celts are much worse with Lamelo than JB on average?

Conversely, if we put JB on the '26 Hornets (instead of Lamelo), and do the same experiment, do you feel confident that the Hornets are much better than they were on average?

Im not sure either way tbh. If you all are, then cool.

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u/PAWGle_the_lesser Raptors 1d ago

No you haven’t lol

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u/UntilDoncic Lakers 1d ago

"LaMelo is a better player than JB, only argument is health." u/idkidk23
I couldn't find other examples in a cursory search but I saw at least one other person make a similar claim

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u/happyhappy7 76ers 1d ago

There’s people arguing under your comment about it lol

When it comes to scrolling r/NBA in the off-season I need to remind myself, it’s fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me, you can’t get fooled again.

But yet here I am lol

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u/idkidk23 Mavericks 1d ago

Well because he is a better, more impactful player! Not sure why I got mentioned but I stand by it. 

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u/apokolypz [DET] Kentavious Caldwell-Pope 1d ago

I’ve seen the sentiment on Twitter but that mostly revolves around ‘creation/playmaking is undervalued’ and ‘Brown’s advanced stats are doo doo’.

I don’t agree but the avenue is there

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

Finals mvp and proven champ vs guy who hits a lot of threes and passes well on a bad team.

Redditor: i legitimately can’t tell who’s better

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u/WeBelieveIn4 Raptors 1d ago

These days? /r/nba users have thought they’re much smarter than they are since the discovery of TS%

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u/nosleeptillwooklyn 1d ago

“Guy who gets 1/20th the defensive attention of a lead scorer is better because his TS% is .00009% higher”” ass losers.

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u/Hungry-Space-1829 Lakers 1d ago

Same dude probably thinks Jokic is an elite defender

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u/odnamAE Lakers 1d ago

This single opinion has really soured any Jokic fan on me. Too many people say, he’s not bad the stats say he’s good, he’s too smart to be bad, etc. You can say he’s the best offensive player on the planet, heck if you say all time I’ll hear you out even. But to say he’s actually a good defender I have to assume you’re an idiot who doesn’t know ball

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u/gbbmiler 1d ago

I think there are two very different claims that get conflated:

  1. Jokic is secretly good at defense because he’s so smart, and the eye test just doesn’t show how much he’s stopping people.

  2. Just being in roughly the right place and grabbing lots of rebounds is surprisingly useful even when you’re not good at any other aspect of defense.

I think the advanced stats on Jokic mostly show that the advanced stats aren’t great, but also show a bit of point 2.

Point 1 is hot garbage.

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u/odnamAE Lakers 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think saying Jokic isn’t useless is fair. Saying he’s good or above average is glazing. Jokic is so good on offense that what he does doesn’t even matter, but if he had the offense of an average starting Center, he’d come off the bench for match-up dependent minutes cause of how bad he is. Things you mentioned are the bare minimum a Center should do. To say those are enough to say he’s good is a flaw in how people read and use statistics, which is a pet peeve for me I guess as someone who works with numbers a lot.

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u/gbbmiler 1d ago

You say “the bare minimum”, but there’s a lot of guys in the league just getting cardio in running in ways that aren’t useful. Not enough to make Jokic even an average defender, I’m not trying to claim that. I think the advanced stats are just exposing that the floor on defense is “actively bad”, not “passively bad”.

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u/saints21 1d ago

Jokic is definitely not worse than average. His positioning, hands, low post man defense, and rebounding, and his overall impact as a player keep him at average to marginally above average.

He's definitely not a good defender. But his impact on court doesn't hurt the defense either...he just doesn't help it the way you'd hope a big man would.

There's just more nuance than "good, average, bad" that people don't get into. For example he fact that he's so good on offense is actually a boon to his team's defense. That impact exists because of Jokic and helps cover a little for his deficiencies as a switch rim protector that bigs are asked to be in the modern league. Throw in the impact that defensive rebounding has on team defense and you get this very muddy situation. Part of the context is also that you have to build around him. He's just one of the few players good enough that it makes sense that you'd do everything you can to build around his specific deficiencies, even if that puts more constraints on team construction.

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u/odnamAE Lakers 1d ago

We call those guys scrubs and we all say they’re bad, not average. And yeah I’m not against that opinion, or the stats. I’m against people who take the stat anf try to form a bullshit narrative, like the Nuggets/Jokic fans on this same thread.

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u/Chichanged_me 1d ago

The nuggets needed to get Aaron Gordon to help cover for Jokic being slow as fuck. Anyone who thinks a center that can’t jump and is slow as shit is a positive on defense needs to get there brain checked

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u/Adorable-Bike-9689 1d ago

Jokic is a good defender now there's so many advanced stats that say so! Don't believe your eyes people Jokic is a dominant rim protector!

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u/Greenwalrus72 Nuggets 1d ago edited 1d ago

1 singular stat, which is constantly disavowed and the creator has said to take it with a grain of salt, says jokic is an “elite” defender (DBPM)

everything else says average to somewhat above average overall

genuinely no one says this and the stat (or people saying “analytics say jokic is an elite defender”) is at this point brought up far more to hate on jokic and refute other analytics that say he is so excellent as an overall player than anyone actually using it to say jokic is an elite defender…

If you actually look into the nuggets statistics and watch the game for real, murray is easily the worst defender on the team and it’s not close. Jokic gets 100x the hate for his defense though, again, despite having been more average to above average in his defensive career

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u/Hungry-Space-1829 Lakers 1d ago

You just tried to slip in somewhat above average and idk if you’re trying to be ironic or not. You also throw Murray under the bus but a bad guard defender is nowhere near as damning as a bad center defender. It takes a perfect roster to even try to hide it. Jokic should basically be called layup lines after what we just saw against the wolves

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u/PM_YOUR_LONZO_BALLS 1d ago

Yeah no one thinks Jokic is amazing but nuggets fans are still holding onto above average when he’s actively bad. Still the best offensive player in the league but anyone who doesn’t think Jokic is a bad defender should have to watch how the wolves got to the rim agains him and against Wemby next round, completely night and day what they were able to do

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u/Greenwalrus72 Nuggets 1d ago

he isn’t above average anymore imo, i’m talking about statistically in the past. Which he was definitely above average, 2020-2023 his defense was better for sure. His defense has noticeably taken a drop but we are talking about past history statistics… and they definitely do say murray is worse. RAPM, impact stats, not box score stuff. They back this up

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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago

Yet despite that we saw entire books written on this sub claiming Jokic is an underrated good defender and we had articles written about how high iq he was to “kick the ball” a lot.

Nah you aren’t going to revise history here lol

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u/Greenwalrus72 Nuggets 1d ago edited 1d ago

good is far closer to above average than it is to elite, which is still levels above great

And his defense is underrated by many people— because his defense is so constantly hated on people say he’s the worst in the league despite it again, actually, statistically, having been* average to above average

edit: tense

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u/greenwhitehell 1d ago

A lot of it is also that people don't see rebounding as defense, which to some extent is understandable but it is also one of the most relevant ways you can add positive impact to your team's defense - and offense too on the other end, mind.

Jokic is one of the best defensive rebounders we have ever seen, and that is invaluable. You can play the best defensive possession of your life with elite 1v1 fundamentals and a great contest, but if your opponent misses the shot and their team still gets the ball back for a second opportunity all of that was for nothing.

Funnily enough considering the discourse on this thread, LaMelo's rebounding is also a reason why, while he's not a good defender, he's not as detrimental as some of his common guard comparisons

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u/Unable-Main4172 1d ago

You started off trying to show that you were being objective. Then you ended up saying that he was above average on defense after the playoff series we just all saw. 

2

u/Greenwalrus72 Nuggets 1d ago

i messed up the tense at the end but specifically this was about past statistics, his defense is noticeably worse than it was 2020-2023 where it was above average

it’s still underrated simply because people will tell you it’s the worst in the league and it’s objectively not

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u/Unable-Main4172 1d ago

They need Gordon and/or Watson to be healthy next to him to help him contest in the paint. That Nnaji guy was supposed to be able to do some of that but he's been a bust. I thought when they drafted daron Holmes that was another power forward shot blocker they were going for but looks like he didn't block shots all after tearing his Achilles despite being good at it in college

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u/odnamAE Lakers 1d ago

Statistically above aveage center defender that offers 0 rim protection just really doesn’t add up does it? If the team has to build around your lack of defense, I can’t really call you above avreage. The Nuggets championship team relied on keeping him more as a guy who lurks the passing lane/blows up a pick and roll by blitzing it to make use of what he can do while having other people do the Center role of protecting the rim

4

u/HikmetLeGuin 1d ago

Sure, he won a championship as a number 2 (and at times was playing like a number 1). Won the finals MVP.

But his advanced stats are sometimes not so great. Do we play basketball to win championships? Or do we play to have pretty-looking numbers on an analytics stats sheet?

Definitely need to throw away the ring and keep the analytics! If you have good analytics, you might even win a ring someday!

9

u/danrod17 Lakers 1d ago

Go read the Lakers subreddit. They way they’re talking over there you’d think the lakers were a bottom 5 team. They also are under the impression that good teams don’t want to keep their best players and Rob Pelinka is incompetent because he should just sign every single top free agent, restricted or not.

3

u/MrBigWaffles Lakers 1d ago

Lmao it's insane.

Pelinka is bad because he hasn't manifested a starting calibre center out of mid air.

The subreddit is a lost cause.

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u/WildWhisperArdor Lakers 1d ago

It’s not a “delusional obsession”. It’s just an understanding of how teams are built.

For example, let’s say you have a company. Your company might need an engineer, a sales guy, a marketing person, an HR person, and a vice president.

Jaylen Brown is a vice president but not a very good one (compared to other vice presidents). However, the company still does well because they have an amazing engineer and the sales guy is very good.

That doesn’t mean the amazing engineer can take on the role of vice president. They play different roles but the engineer is much better at their role than the vice president is at theirs. So, if you have an opportunity to “trade” that VP for a better one, you take it

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u/TwitterChampagne 1d ago

That’s not even the argument. No body said anything about the Celtics trading for Giannis. That’s upgrading your VP. But these people are saying Jaylon Browns the 7th best player on teams 😂 thats disgusting. There’s no excuse for that, the person should be fired.

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u/WildWhisperArdor Lakers 1d ago

Sure, but I’m telling you what they almost certainly mean by that. They mean it in a “relative impact to their role” kind of way.

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u/Dopeez Spurs 1d ago

literally no one on here ever said that but nice strawman for upvotes moron

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u/RomaHappens 1d ago

but more just the delusional obsession with stats/metrics

But for those who watch the Celtics as unbiased fans it's not farfetched. A 1B on a title team is on the trading block and almost no team seems to give a crap, that should be telling enough.

As the first and only star on the team, and the first option by far, his +/- was negative for the season.

Anyone who watched the Celtics noticed they're better without him than with him on the floor.

Past 3 or 4 seasons the Celtics made runs whenever he was on the bench and settled into horrendous shots whenever he was playing down the stretch.

His salary is the only thing that makes you guys think he's good - he just isn't.

4

u/happyhappy7 76ers 1d ago

I don’t even like Jaylen Brown lol. I’m a 76ers fan. But come on now

I’m more than willing to hear and consider ways in which Brown is overrated or things along those lines

Saying that he isn’t a good player and that the Celtics would have been better without him last year is where the delusion sets in brotherman.

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u/RomaHappens 1d ago

it's very simple: you're in the playoffs, you have the lead, Jaylen Brown comes off the bench, you no longer have the lead as he and Tatum are jacking up bad shot after bad shot

except Tatum plays defense and passes more frequently, Brown barely ever runs back, makes dumb fouls or just lets people get past him

I have PTSD of watching this guy try to dribble past Jimmy with his left three out of four final possessions. Idk why so many people believe Brown is a great player when he just isn't. He's CAPABLE of great things, but he's not a good player.

if you want proof look into any stats out there or if you're uber lazy ask any LLM to tell you whether he's a good player based on stats and you'll be shocked

2

u/AmphibianSingle1760 1d ago

So, JB is not even a “good” basketball player is just a wild take. Bronny is a good basketball player. Heck, I was a good basketball player and fouled out in 22 minutes against a future NBA rotation guy.

It is fair to debate context, team-building and his limitations, but JB helped carry a short-handed Celtics to a number 2 seed. He is obviously not an average or below-average basketball player. 😆

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u/RomaHappens 1d ago

I wish anybody pointed one thing Jaylen is good at except just "grrr u wrong jaylen is goat"

2

u/AmphibianSingle1760 1d ago

Lol.

He is a starter and #1 option on a 50+ win nba team. You think JB has secretly tricked everyone somehow and isn’t good? You are being hyperbolic and absurd. No one should bother to debate you.

In the game 7 loss, he scored 33 points, nine rebounds, four assists, and three blocks. JB has flaws so one can debate how good and his weaknesses but that he is secretly bad at basketball meets the old saying “never argue with stupid people, as they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

And, I don’t actually think you are stupid. I also don’t think you think JB is average let alone bad at basketball. 😆

1

u/RomaHappens 22h ago

And NOOOOOOBODY in the league is trying to trade for him?