Jaylen Brown: an average player among the elite?

Before you start reading this article, I ask that you come with an open mind and remember that I’m comparing Jaylen Brown to the elite players of this world, not the entire league. Moreover, this piece focuses solely on his on-court impact because it can be measured, and that matters to me. Therefore, while I acknowledge Jaylen Brown’s leadership, aura, and awards, the focal point of this article is his on-court production.

To better understand Jaylen Brown’s on-court impact, I dove deep into his statistics and rewatched games from recent seasons. While Jaylen Brown can sometimes appear to be the best player in the world (as Oliver Fox noted), the numbers don’t tell the same story.

Jaylen Brown, a scoring machine – really?

At 23 points per game, Jaylen Brown ranks 19th on the list of top scorers. However, points per game is a statistic with some gray areas. It doesn’t tell us about the volume needed or the efficiency behind those 23 points. To assess scoring ability, you need to combine two statistics: Usage Rate (volume) and True Shooting Percentage (efficiency). So, how does Jaylen Brown measure up in scoring compared to the league’s high-volume players?

The answer: pretty average. According to Cleaning The Glass, among 53 players with a Usage Rate above 25%, Jaylen Brown ranks 27th in efficiency (TS%)—between 21-year-old Alperen Şengün and 23-year-old Tyrese Maxey. Looking at a larger pool from Basketball Reference, Brown ranks 50th in TS% among the top 100 players by Usage Rate this season. It doesn’t get more “average among the elite” than that.

But why isn’t Jaylen Brown more efficient? And why does he sometimes appear more efficient than the stats suggest?

Highlights don’t always equate to productivity

Jaylen Brown’s average efficiency stems from two interrelated factors. The first is his shot selection. Brown takes 36% of his shots in the mid-range, the least efficient area on the court. He’s very good in this zone — 48% of his mid-range attempts go in, placing him among the best. However, excelling in a “low-reward” area doesn’t boost his overall efficiency.

https://www.bball-index.com/shot-charts-lite/

While 36% of his shots come from the low-reward mid-range, only 30% come from beyond the three-point line, most of them from above the break which are less efficient than corner threes. While this makes sense because corner threes are typically for role players, you could argue that taking more of them could help improve his efficiency. However, his three-point shot selection isn’t overly problematic.

The second factor impacting his efficiency is his free-throw shooting, or rather, his lack of presence at the line and his struggles when he gets there. His relationship with the free-throw line is puzzling.

Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

Using Free Throw Rate (the ratio of FT attempts to FG attempts), we see that among the top 100 players by Usage Rate on Basketball Reference, Brown ranks 64th in Free Throw Rate. How is it that one of the best in-game dunkers doesn’t get to the line more often than the average NBA player?

Again, the numbers don’t match the highlights. Compounding the issue, Brown shoots only 70% from the line, below the league average of 78%. These numbers are showing again some holes in Jaylen Brown game among the elite.

Jaylen Brown seems to be absent from the high-reward zones (free throws and three-pointers) but highly active in the low-reward zone. So, what about his relationship with the ultimate high-reward zone—the rim?

The Rim: focal point of the problem, or the solution?

Brown attempts 34% of his shots at the rim—a respectable volume compared to similar players (69th percentile among wings, per Cleaning The Glass). However, this is down from his early seasons, when over 40% of his shots were at the rim.

As for his efficiency at the rim, it’s… average. Among the 76 players with more than four rim attempts per game last season, Brown ranks 48th in FG%. While some of these players are simply rim runners, among wings, Brown ranks in the 61st percentile—slightly above average. Good, but with room for greatness.

Brown is one of the NBA’s best finishers at the rim, but the problem arises before he gets there. What if his inability to be elite at the rim and generate more free throws stems from the types of rim attempts he takes? His handle and court vision have improved, but not enough to consistently create optimal situations for himself. However, when Brown receives a boost from teammates, he becomes unstoppable. For example:

• During the regular season: 67% at the rim while assisted on 51% of his made attempts.
• During the playoffs: 75% at the rim while assisted on 62% of his made attempts.

Brown’s speed and explosiveness are far more dangerous when he doesn’t have the ball and can leap above defenders. With more off-ball action, Brown could become the elite finisher he’s destined to be. He could maintain his mid-range volume while increasing efficiency. His average efficiency isn’t entirely his fault, but to become an efficient one, his role and approach need adjustment.

While I hope the coaching staff tweaks Brown’s usage to involve more off-ball play, what do the numbers say about Brown as a creator for others?

Jaylen as a primary creator

Now that we’ve covered Brown’s scoring, what can we say about his ability to create for others? How do the Celtics perform when Brown is the primary creator on the floor?

According to Cleaning The Glass, among 53 players with a Usage Rate above 25% and at least 1,500 minutes, Brown ranks 49th in creation for others, ahead of only Jaren Jackson Jr., Karl-Anthony Towns, Cam Thomas, and Jerami Grant. The statistic used here is assist-to-usage ratio (AST:Usg), which helps quantify a player’s passing relative to their overall volume.

Ranking 49th out of 53 players in this category doesn’t mean Brown can’t pass or find his teammates. However, it strongly suggests, as we noted earlier, that Brown is primarily a finisher, not a playmaker. Another metric pointing in the same direction is the Celtics’ performance when Brown is the primary creator. Over the past three years, Brown has logged 2,659 minutes without Jayson Tatum (in both the regular season and playoffs).

When this happens, Brown’s Usage Rate jumps from 27.6% to 34.4% per PBP Stats. In short, when Tatum is on the bench, Brown becomes the go-to guy. Individually, his True Shooting percentage drops slightly but remains steady (from 58.3% to 57.6%). However, the team’s offense changes significantly.

Over the past three years, when Brown and Tatum shared the court, the Celtics’ offensive rating was 118.71. But in those 2,659 minutes with Brown as the primary option, the Celtics’ offensive rating dropped to 115.10 (for reference, the offensive rating with Tatum but without Brown was 121.44 over 3,973 minutes). The offensive dip when Brown is the focal point isn’t due to variance or bad luck—the sample size is too large for that.

These numbers keep suggesting that while Brown is an elite finisher, he isn’t an elite creator, despite what some highlights might suggest.

We can ask for more, and he can deliver

Jaylen Brown has the supermax contract, the Finals MVP, and All-NBA status. He’s a certified star, a Celtics legend. However, after examining his on-court numbers, I think we’re justified in asking for more. Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics coaching staff should find ways to optimize his role so he can reach his full potential.

With some adjustments—better off-ball utilization and a more methodical approach—Brown could become an elite scorer. But for now, the numbers don’t lie, and Jaylen Brown remains average among the elite. There’s nothing wrong with being average among the elite, but is that what we expect from a Finals MVP on a supermax contract? More importantly, is it what Jaylen Brown expects from himself?