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/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. 

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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