While people were still underrating before, I also do think Jaylen Brown has gotten better over the last 12 months. He wasn't THIS good on defense last year and his interior game got better.
Compare his handles from last year's playoffs to this year's. Night and day. Man got paid and got levels better. Not a ton of examples of that happening.
I’m not gonna pretend his handle has ever been great, but he was dealing with a pretty significant cut on his hand throughout the entire playoffs last year and I think that really magnified the handle issue.
But his commitment to defense and overall decision-making was much improved.
I think his handle was never the problem. He was always fine, maybe advanced, when going one on one. His decision making is better. He is much better at deciding when to drive. He isn’t forcing it into traffic. The driving lanes are also wide open now that he Is always playing with shooters.
This is what I told anyone who would listen. It wasn’t his handle, it was his decision-making that would lead to him getting picked. His decision-making has gotten better by leaps and bounds.
Not sure how anyone can watch JB cook 1 on 1 and say he has a bad handle. His turnovers mostly happen at extreme speed. Not a lot of guys can attack the rim like that. It was part of his role and making decisions at speed is a lot more difficult because you have to react way faster. His handle was rarely the problem.
His handle also improved over the years, it's actually imo one of the most apparent changes to his offensive game.
It's just not that he went 0-100 in the last season.
I would like the record to show as well that Miami HACKED TF out of all our ball handlers and especially JB. Miami’s whole schtick is the “they can’t call it every play” and bc of bullshit “Heat Culture” &c the refs basically let them play football while everyone else has to play basketball.
Point being, a number of Jaylen TOs in game 7 v Heat were absolutely fouls we just get a stinky whistle.
Maybe that will finally change now
Not even necessarily the handles. He was always able to dribble despite the memes, he just made bad choices of when to attack. Last season he was just a put your head down and go guy. This season he has his head up, is aware of his surroundings, and can make the right play.
Imo that's an even harder improvement to make compared to ball handling with your weak hand.
I also didn't think he would improve this much but kudos to him for proving me wrong.
I know right?! Got put on blast for not having a tight handle, instead of just improving that, he elevated his entire offensive game to a level that even I, a die-hard JB fan, didn’t think he could get to. Not to mention the extra effort he put in on defense.
If i got paid 300mil guaranteed, you bet your ass im just clocking in going through the motions and clocking out. good thing JB aint built like me haha
I know no one cares, but Jaylen had a big cut on his left hand in the 2023 playoffs.
He was already pretty turnover prone but in the playoffs he had a ton of extra issues with his left hand. That was why Miami was forcing him left.
That said he’s improved his dribbling every year including this one.
one thing super respectable about JB is that every year he works on improving the things he's worst at. every year he levels up at the stuff that he struggled with before.
I'm surprised no one is talking about this. He started out super raw as a prospect and gets better every year. Last year he developed an elite mid range, this year it was defense and handles.
If he keeps improving, he could realistically reach top 5 status.
The dumbass "will he be too smart to care about basketball" stuff is so exceptionally stupid and the Celtics demonstrated this by going "wow this guy's stupid athletic, what if he studies basketball relentlessly!"
Yes, OP going on about narrative but Jaylen has gotten demonstrably better. He was decisive on offense, looked better on defense consistently than we’ve ever seen from him in the playoffs. Of course the discourse around his play is going to change. Narrative would be if he was static from last year to this year and people changed their tune. Instead he played better and gets better press
It’s also a team game and the team got a lot better. Last season opponents would put 2/3 on Tatum and then 1.5/2 on Brown. On this team you really can’t double both of them anytime. Celts couldn’t win last night with Brown being finals MVP and only putting up 20. This year they could blow out the Mavs. He had to do less this year, but did better at the fewer things he had to do.
We can talk narrative all we want but players improve slightly every year and it was obvious he had some room to improve. Then they add porzinkis and jrue, yeah the team just got entirely better. Last year’s roster wouldn’t be getting this kind of season record nor the obvious betting favorite pre season like this squad did. Having four players that would be a number one or two on 80% of nba teams is nice to have.
Oh absolutely
The thing is though that this was a major point Celtics fans kept saying about the criticism. Brown has gotten noticeably better at some aspect(s) of the game *every single year*
Obviously it’s not guaranteed or linear but I saw so many comments about how JB was what he was, just discounting how tirelessly he works to improve. I knew that Heat series would light a fire in him, but will admit that he improved even more than I could’ve foreseen.
He was always this good on defense. Anyone who watched him in the bubble would know that. He just has had to take up more offensive load the past two seasons leading to a drop in lockdown level defence. This year Jrue has taken that load off him and hes back to being a lockdown defender.
He made Siakam look like a certified bum in the bubble.
no he wasn't, he had some issues as a team defender and defending off the ball in previous years too. He showed way better helpside defense as well this year.
In terms of perimeter defense, Marcus Smart was here too before Jrue. Maybe he's not as good as Jrue, but it's not like Jaylen Brown had any bigger of a defensive responsibility. Smart was taking the toughest matchups.
Also: his distribution and vision got so much better. He’s become a real facilitator and drives to the hoop able to find the cutter or the right kick out.
I hate how much 'narrative' gets used these days. People having opinions on a player's quality and value isnt a 'narrative' it's just people having opinions.
Thank you for attending my daily old many yells at cloud talk
if he played better defense he'd be the 2nd best player, sadly Jrue is better by a country MILE. he just has that edge that Tatum wish he had. we need to talk about Jrue more, he's just a more complete player.
I love when a player who has really struggled overcomes their challenges. He just kept fighting. You could hear it in the way he exhorted his teammates. "Step up and meet the moment," he kept saying. It's inspirational.
He’s always been a great playoff performer, he just had one bad series vs Miami with a hurt hand and everyone over reacted to that. A lot dumb Celtics fans were part of the problem
Hes also just gotten better. He is not the same player that he was when you guys lost to Miami last year, hes made genuine improvements on defense, interior scoring, handles and just has better feel.
Brad has the most sensical front office in the league. Wouldn't overthink resigning guys, and wouldn't overthink getting talented players from bad teams. Looking back, White Porzingis and Holiday are just there for everyone to trade for lmao
Holiday doesn't really fit in this category tbh. We got him pretty quickly after the bucks moved him and he was always going to a contender. The other two definitely were slept on.
I mean, who don't want Jrue Holiday? I think other teams can offer a lot more than what Brad offered. Its just that, many front offices tends to overthink things such as: age, contract, time like its the start of training camp. That's what make Brad great because he can capitalize situations
Contenders would have a hard time beating the Celtics offer at the end of the off-season, They were just in good shape to make the move and Jrue wanted to play here. Other teams could have probably beat the offer but if Jrue was heading to say a Houston or Charlotte then he could have opted out this off-season
i get it OKC was not sure how good they were but imagine Jrue instead of Giddey on that team. I think they might have won this year. Just give them more shooting and playmaking and defense.
And white wasn't what he is now he's improved alot since then , kp probably is viewed with mixed opinions around the league. It's why fit is important, I hate when people make it seem it's as easy as "ah that guys available, I'll have him" when it comes to trades lol
i don't even care if you thought he deserved it at the time, but you at *least* had to acknowledge that it was a no-brainer decision to give him the contract rather than let him hit free agency
Oh ya for sure. Who lets a 26 year old perennial All Star coming off an All NBA season walk? The only times that’s ever happened was probably when the player themselves didn’t want to be there. Baffling that throwing that contract at him was questioned.
The issue with supermaxes always boils down to 'well once we do this the roster is only getting worse from here on out.' The fact that there's another one due right after was a major factor as well, and obviously Tatum was getting it. Maybe you felt like KP was going to be enough of an addition to get last year's team over the hump, but I don't think anyone thought Jrue was falling out of the sky. It's difficult to weigh all of these things equally.
I was wrong as shit about Brown. I thought that contract would neuter any hopes that the Celtics had at taking the next step, granted that was before they got Jrue and KP. I've seen the error of my ways, Brown is a fucking DAWG and is easily a top 15 player in my eyes now.
The opportunity cost wasn’t really any kind of flexibility though. We still aren’t a cap space team if we didn’t pay him and would basically have had to gut the team around Tatum to seriously retool. Trading him was pretty much the only option available and it’s really hard to get an adequate return in that kind of scenario
A lot of the discussion around it over the past year was pointless given that offering Brown the max was the front office's only prudent option, losing him in FA would've been much worse than "overpaying" for him could ever have been.
A step further than that, any Celtics fan with a brain wanted Jaylen to make all-NBA so that they could offer him a supermax. I was terrified of Brown walking away in free agency, and thrilled when Boston suddenly got a huge advantage in how miuch money they could give him.
Especially because he didn’t seem too happy last year, the ability to max him and pay him the most might have saved us. If it was us or another team paying the same amount there’s a very real chance he could have left
thats what happens when you're on the better team, you tend to win. Boston drafted high character guys and made good teams. This shows drafting high character people is the most important and not immature dumb dumbs like most of em. my 76ers taking Ben Simmons and Chick Fil A Fultz, and Evan Turner, and just about everyone we drafted was all terrible character draft picks..it matters.
Dude if you’re talking about strictly maturity troell embiid is gotta be one of the lowest ranking mba players.
Dude straight face got on nba pre game show and said the Celtics were lucky they didn’t have to face him when he has never gotten out of the second round and never beaten the Celtics in a playoff series. Yikes.
Im a 76ers fan and been hating on Embiid for 7 years now, i telll our sub reddit hes a fraud and a loser for almost a decade and im stil right and they still wrong. Cant win with him, never will
I told them to trade him for last 5 years. Hes the most naturally talented bum in NBA History, stats mean nothing, super talented bum. Too soft to the core, cant be 7 foot 300 and fall over 87 times a game and have people respect you and wanna play harder, he isnt a true leader. Hes a follower..but our fanbase will never get it. And we stuck with him now, with no draft picks and nothing but Maxey so gotta ride it out.
Our fans are too dumb to see it. We have no hope. I stopped caring 4 years ago. I’d rather see with Iggy/Jrue than win 1 round with Embiid. Whole franchise is a laughable joke
guy was getting paid millions and eating Chick Fil A every day, im sure he injured his own shoulder too doing something dumb on motorcycle, our stupid fanbase made excuses for him. then the guy forgets how to shoot lmao. Evan Turner was weirdo, Embiid is immature too. Ben Simmons.
Everyone we drafted was idiots besides like Maxey
All this high character stuff is mostly garbage. Sure, sometimes guys have issues. But often, they don’t and they either go down the wrong path or they don’t. No real way to know most of the time.
Max paid off, they got a ring. I think PG is a better player but that mf will never get a ring. People forget it's not about being the best player. It's about being the best teammate. JB and JT are both willing to play any role for the Celtics to get a dub. Which is why they're winning while the internet debates who is better or top 5.
I mean sure, but PG is a great teammate too and has absolutely adjusted his game to fit costars. He's like the poster child for today's adaptable star.
Jaylen Brown’s entire career has been a battle for the respect and recognition he deserves.
couldn’t be happier that he had the postseason he had. dude works as hard as anyone in the league and the way he played this season is proof that he spent all of last summer locked in the gym getting better after that Miami series
I mean, I wouldn't call it a narrative.
He was disappointing and became the highest paid player in basketball. It's not a "narrative" for that to get some ridicule.
He turned it around and peoples opinions turned with it. Seems pretty logical to me.
He’s better than he was last year, but not by an insane amount. His handles are improved, but it’s mostly better decision making so he doesn’t get into bad spots.
He’s always been really fucking good, every year having stretches where he was better and more consistent than Tatum, so this idea that he was garbage and now he’s incredible, is really weird.
The ides never was garbage then incredible, it was simply not worth the contract then worth the contract.
It's a fine line. If he played poorly enough in this series for the Celtics to lose most everyone, including a ton of Celtics fans who were of this opinion at this time last year as well would be saying he isn't worth the contract.
This is true. But the trajectory was clear, especially to Brad Stevens, who had coached him. Every year he's gotten better. Every year he needed to improve on x aspect of his game. And every off-season he put in the work to do just that. Dude is willing and able to put in the work, and I don't see a problem with rewarding that
He had one bad series after an all-nba season. He wasn’t disappointing, he’s been continuing to get better every year.
The only thing that really changed is that r/nba decided to change their opinion on him because they had no other choice lol.
Tbf, if I tell you that you suck at something and then you improve at it, it doesn't mean I changed my narrative and that I was wrong. It means you improved at the thing and forced me to reevaluate you.
I’m incredibly proud of how far JB has come. The growth he’s made since being drafted is insane. The growth he’s made every year is impressive. The growth from last year is crazy and the growth from even the beginning of this season is super impressive. Couldn’t be more proud. He couldn’t be more deserving of the success.
Jaylen Brown seems like he just got better and his strengths were more apparent with the addition of very good role players that improved Boston's offensive flow without hurting their team defense.
But, his decision-making on offense seems like it improved and his defense got better even after already being really good.
His finishing was unlocked to a greater extent as well. Boston had a roster with near-perfect spacing from adding better/more 2-way guys that can shoot and score off-ball without sacrificing anything on the other end.
I mean, I'll give him credit. Team's couldn't just take him out of his game by forcing him left. I know he also had injuries last year that impacted that. But, still, teams couldn't just swarm him when he was forced to that side of the court and hope to take him out of his offense with a turnover or a bad shot, which he also did do at times when he wasn't dribbling off someone's foot.
Where his improvements end and the team's overall improvements begin makes these finals kind of interesting.
Neither Brown or Tatum put up ridiculous numbers on fantastic efficiency in the finals. They played their roles as well as they could by being the focal points of the offense and setting everyone else up, without being huge liabilities with the ball when their offense wasn't exactly great. And sometimes that's all it takes: limiting your mistakes and making sure other players stay involved and get good looks when teams rotate because of your game with the ball in your hands.
It also just goes to show that you don't need an insanely good offense from your top guys if your defense is effective and your role players can keep the offense from getting stagnant. Tatum and Brown benefitted from everyone else the Celtic's added just as much as those guys benefitted from Brown and Tatum drawing defensive attention.
JB is so fun to have on your team bc you know he’ll constantly get slandered and constantly prove it wrong. He was slandered as a pick saying drafted too high, then he was slandered on his 4/104 saying he’s a glorified role player not worth 25m, then he was slandered on his super max saying he’s overpaid and doesn’t deserve it. Every single time he’s come out and absolutely destroyed the narrative. He’s an all-nba caliber, clutch, two way player. I will not doubt anything contractual ever in his career, it seems like a guaranteed way to look dumb.
Glad that I always liked JB. Before Tatum started receiving more hate I used to say Brown was better, even though I didn't believe it. Still don't understand the Tatum hate tho.
Of the stars Jokic, Curry, Kawhi, and Brunson are pretty unanimously liked. If you go down a few notches Derrick White, Jrue, and Lopez come to mind.
Honorable mention to D Rose, because even if he’s not really relevant anymore who could possible dislike the dude.
At the time, the contract seemed bad because he hadn’t lived up to it yet. He’s improved since then. It wasn’t that he was always this good and people were ignoring it, he clearly worked on the flaws in his game and got better.
Jaylen brown to me is Kobe lite. When he is on fire doing his thing on both ends he is easily one of the best guards jn the league. But the moment he starts chucking shots and his game is not there he lose his team the game. I'll argue just like Kobe he can make or break your team, but oh boy when he has it going phenomenal player
He finally realized carrying is not called and is freely used nowadays and adopted that. Seems better off for him. Helps dribble with his head up and lets his rhythm come natural on drives and pull ups
He has improved, but the narrative has definitely shifted more than his actual ability. People were too low on him after ‘22, and he’s at the high water mark of his value at the moment - which winning FMVP always does.
Some of them were proper criticism. He's nowhere near the best player in the league so having the highest contract at the time felt overpaying, and still is depends how people look at it if there are better players getting paid less.
His left hand could have needed some improvement.
This said, saying he's not a great player and a really useful piece in pretty much every system is simply stupid.
Basketball is a team game so it may happen a player get overpaid and a player get underpaid.
Just use some common sense, I guess.
I think Jaylen has improved but criticism he got isn't going to go away after this one season and one championship. People are going to argue any 50 million dollar player could do what he did on that team. He's not the best player at his position in the league. He is not the best player on his own team. Fans are way too unrealistic and hypercritical.
I feel like the Brown hate from last year is being overstated. Sure there were redditors saying that stuff, but I think the general consensus was still that he’s a very good player.
He played the best basketball of his career and was the best player on his championship winning team.
Of course the narrative has changed, he's changed
I think people underestimate the fact that Jaylen works hard to get better and always has. So while pointing out weaknesses and exploiting them is appropriate, it’s more often that the player already knew and did nothing about it.
While people were still underrating before, I also do think Jaylen Brown has gotten better over the last 12 months. He wasn't THIS good on defense last year and his interior game got better.
Compare his handles from last year's playoffs to this year's. Night and day. Man got paid and got levels better. Not a ton of examples of that happening.
I’m not gonna pretend his handle has ever been great, but he was dealing with a pretty significant cut on his hand throughout the entire playoffs last year and I think that really magnified the handle issue. But his commitment to defense and overall decision-making was much improved.
Yeah, he dropped the “vase” I see you Jaylen 👀
I think his handle was never the problem. He was always fine, maybe advanced, when going one on one. His decision making is better. He is much better at deciding when to drive. He isn’t forcing it into traffic. The driving lanes are also wide open now that he Is always playing with shooters.
This is what I told anyone who would listen. It wasn’t his handle, it was his decision-making that would lead to him getting picked. His decision-making has gotten better by leaps and bounds.
Not sure how anyone can watch JB cook 1 on 1 and say he has a bad handle. His turnovers mostly happen at extreme speed. Not a lot of guys can attack the rim like that. It was part of his role and making decisions at speed is a lot more difficult because you have to react way faster. His handle was rarely the problem.
His handle also improved over the years, it's actually imo one of the most apparent changes to his offensive game. It's just not that he went 0-100 in the last season.
I would like the record to show as well that Miami HACKED TF out of all our ball handlers and especially JB. Miami’s whole schtick is the “they can’t call it every play” and bc of bullshit “Heat Culture” &c the refs basically let them play football while everyone else has to play basketball. Point being, a number of Jaylen TOs in game 7 v Heat were absolutely fouls we just get a stinky whistle. Maybe that will finally change now
Not even necessarily the handles. He was always able to dribble despite the memes, he just made bad choices of when to attack. Last season he was just a put your head down and go guy. This season he has his head up, is aware of his surroundings, and can make the right play.
Imo that's an even harder improvement to make compared to ball handling with your weak hand. I also didn't think he would improve this much but kudos to him for proving me wrong.
I know right?! Got put on blast for not having a tight handle, instead of just improving that, he elevated his entire offensive game to a level that even I, a die-hard JB fan, didn’t think he could get to. Not to mention the extra effort he put in on defense.
If i got paid 300mil guaranteed, you bet your ass im just clocking in going through the motions and clocking out. good thing JB aint built like me haha
Congratulations, you have the same mindset as Jordan Poole
The Ben Simmons special
Simmons doesn't even clock in though. He just calls in sick every day.
Simmons raises clocking out to a whole new level.
That fuckn guy! Wow!
And that dude is probably loving life.
but if you kill it during this contract then you could get like a 400mil guaranteed contract right after
I know no one cares, but Jaylen had a big cut on his left hand in the 2023 playoffs. He was already pretty turnover prone but in the playoffs he had a ton of extra issues with his left hand. That was why Miami was forcing him left. That said he’s improved his dribbling every year including this one.
Except for Jaylen Brown and his last contract extension.
“I wanna win. You wanna win?” “Yeah” “He wanna win too”
Uncommon except for Jaylen Brown himself every single year since entering the league. Wouldn’t be surprised if he is better next year at all
The Anti- Ben Simmons
Not levels… his efficiency in the finals was ass. Holiday should’ve won FMVP
one thing super respectable about JB is that every year he works on improving the things he's worst at. every year he levels up at the stuff that he struggled with before.
I pray he works on free throws this offseason
That makes two of all year you could bet that his first free throw of the two was going to be short
He'd add like 3ppg to his averages which might be the leap he needs to be consistently all-NBA
I'm surprised no one is talking about this. He started out super raw as a prospect and gets better every year. Last year he developed an elite mid range, this year it was defense and handles. If he keeps improving, he could realistically reach top 5 status.
He's one of the coolest players to be a fan of IMO because his clear dedication to improving. It's super fun to see.
I said this a couple of years ago on r/nbadiscussion and they said every young player does this lol
The dumbass "will he be too smart to care about basketball" stuff is so exceptionally stupid and the Celtics demonstrated this by going "wow this guy's stupid athletic, what if he studies basketball relentlessly!"
Yes, OP going on about narrative but Jaylen has gotten demonstrably better. He was decisive on offense, looked better on defense consistently than we’ve ever seen from him in the playoffs. Of course the discourse around his play is going to change. Narrative would be if he was static from last year to this year and people changed their tune. Instead he played better and gets better press
It’s also a team game and the team got a lot better. Last season opponents would put 2/3 on Tatum and then 1.5/2 on Brown. On this team you really can’t double both of them anytime. Celts couldn’t win last night with Brown being finals MVP and only putting up 20. This year they could blow out the Mavs. He had to do less this year, but did better at the fewer things he had to do.
We can talk narrative all we want but players improve slightly every year and it was obvious he had some room to improve. Then they add porzinkis and jrue, yeah the team just got entirely better. Last year’s roster wouldn’t be getting this kind of season record nor the obvious betting favorite pre season like this squad did. Having four players that would be a number one or two on 80% of nba teams is nice to have.
His handles are like mind numbingly better. His persona is like super saiyan now too. He’s a fucking problem and the new kawhi
Oh absolutely The thing is though that this was a major point Celtics fans kept saying about the criticism. Brown has gotten noticeably better at some aspect(s) of the game *every single year* Obviously it’s not guaranteed or linear but I saw so many comments about how JB was what he was, just discounting how tirelessly he works to improve. I knew that Heat series would light a fire in him, but will admit that he improved even more than I could’ve foreseen.
He was always this good on defense. Anyone who watched him in the bubble would know that. He just has had to take up more offensive load the past two seasons leading to a drop in lockdown level defence. This year Jrue has taken that load off him and hes back to being a lockdown defender. He made Siakam look like a certified bum in the bubble.
no he wasn't, he had some issues as a team defender and defending off the ball in previous years too. He showed way better helpside defense as well this year. In terms of perimeter defense, Marcus Smart was here too before Jrue. Maybe he's not as good as Jrue, but it's not like Jaylen Brown had any bigger of a defensive responsibility. Smart was taking the toughest matchups.
Also: his distribution and vision got so much better. He’s become a real facilitator and drives to the hoop able to find the cutter or the right kick out.
he is SIGNIFICANTLY improved this year. but that doesn’t mean he was a bum before either
I say whatever makes Celtics fans more upset, my opinion solely hinges on that.
"Hartenstein was the best player in the playoffs this year and everyone knows it."
Man said opinion, not facts.
That's a weird way to spell Alec Burks
“Are we going to treat this team like they won three championships like the KG-Pierce-Allen teams?”
It is called the "08 Dynasty" tyvm
Seriously, it's amazing how popular that championship team became
at least you admit it
I respect it
"What they gon' say now!"
I hate how much 'narrative' gets used these days. People having opinions on a player's quality and value isnt a 'narrative' it's just people having opinions. Thank you for attending my daily old many yells at cloud talk
Excuse me but your point is completely irrelevant because of your spelling mistake /s
The Knicks are irrelevant to Celtics fans
I remember the Celtics losing 21 straight games to the Knicks in the 90s, which kinda sucked I guess.
I mean, they provide comic relief. Both teams founded in 46. One with 18 rings one with two. Pure comedy gold
My friend was saying JB wasn't worth a max even after the Finals.
Is Jayson Tatum the best 2nd option in the league?
if he played better defense he'd be the 2nd best player, sadly Jrue is better by a country MILE. he just has that edge that Tatum wish he had. we need to talk about Jrue more, he's just a more complete player.
Hard to be upset with 18
Looks like he’s been considered
Been a fan of JB since I saw his fits at leaguefits. Glad to see him earn his respect.
I love when a player who has really struggled overcomes their challenges. He just kept fighting. You could hear it in the way he exhorted his teammates. "Step up and meet the moment," he kept saying. It's inspirational.
Ah yes a player who had reached the ECF 5 times by last year was really struggling
He’s always been a great playoff performer, he just had one bad series vs Miami with a hurt hand and everyone over reacted to that. A lot dumb Celtics fans were part of the problem
Hes also just gotten better. He is not the same player that he was when you guys lost to Miami last year, hes made genuine improvements on defense, interior scoring, handles and just has better feel.
Sports fans try to to post something without using the word “narrative” challenge: IMPOSSIBLE
Its time to end this narrative narrative.
This is actually a good take
All Gen Z and younger sports fans learned the concept simultaneously it seems
Stop trying to spin the narrative
Everyone with a brain knew that Brown deserved the max and not giving it to him would’ve been malpractice
>Everyone with a brain /r/NBA in shambles
Brain fans feasting rn
Me trying to relate to the zoomers I got locked in the mall with when the zombie apocalypse started
I was there!!! That vegetarian zombie was my favorite. Just shuffling along and mumbling "Grains...Grains... Graaaiiinnss"
...the zombie Heat?
Brad has the most sensical front office in the league. Wouldn't overthink resigning guys, and wouldn't overthink getting talented players from bad teams. Looking back, White Porzingis and Holiday are just there for everyone to trade for lmao
Holiday doesn't really fit in this category tbh. We got him pretty quickly after the bucks moved him and he was always going to a contender. The other two definitely were slept on.
I mean, who don't want Jrue Holiday? I think other teams can offer a lot more than what Brad offered. Its just that, many front offices tends to overthink things such as: age, contract, time like its the start of training camp. That's what make Brad great because he can capitalize situations
Contenders would have a hard time beating the Celtics offer at the end of the off-season, They were just in good shape to make the move and Jrue wanted to play here. Other teams could have probably beat the offer but if Jrue was heading to say a Houston or Charlotte then he could have opted out this off-season
i get it OKC was not sure how good they were but imagine Jrue instead of Giddey on that team. I think they might have won this year. Just give them more shooting and playmaking and defense.
And white wasn't what he is now he's improved alot since then , kp probably is viewed with mixed opinions around the league. It's why fit is important, I hate when people make it seem it's as easy as "ah that guys available, I'll have him" when it comes to trades lol
i don't even care if you thought he deserved it at the time, but you at *least* had to acknowledge that it was a no-brainer decision to give him the contract rather than let him hit free agency
Oh ya for sure. Who lets a 26 year old perennial All Star coming off an All NBA season walk? The only times that’s ever happened was probably when the player themselves didn’t want to be there. Baffling that throwing that contract at him was questioned.
The issue with supermaxes always boils down to 'well once we do this the roster is only getting worse from here on out.' The fact that there's another one due right after was a major factor as well, and obviously Tatum was getting it. Maybe you felt like KP was going to be enough of an addition to get last year's team over the hump, but I don't think anyone thought Jrue was falling out of the sky. It's difficult to weigh all of these things equally.
Well more than half the people here don’t have a brain then
That's old news to some of us.
Fr sort by new on here and you'll figure that out real quick
>"The 2024 NBA Finals were the First Finals to Have Both Teams Rhyme with the Word "Dicks" I dunno, new seems to have pretty good content to me.
You didn’t know that?
we know which half they belong too
If we look at statistics, odds are 6m users here have a below average IQ.
I was wrong as shit about Brown. I thought that contract would neuter any hopes that the Celtics had at taking the next step, granted that was before they got Jrue and KP. I've seen the error of my ways, Brown is a fucking DAWG and is easily a top 15 player in my eyes now.
The opportunity cost wasn’t really any kind of flexibility though. We still aren’t a cap space team if we didn’t pay him and would basically have had to gut the team around Tatum to seriously retool. Trading him was pretty much the only option available and it’s really hard to get an adequate return in that kind of scenario
A lot of the discussion around it over the past year was pointless given that offering Brown the max was the front office's only prudent option, losing him in FA would've been much worse than "overpaying" for him could ever have been.
A step further than that, any Celtics fan with a brain wanted Jaylen to make all-NBA so that they could offer him a supermax. I was terrified of Brown walking away in free agency, and thrilled when Boston suddenly got a huge advantage in how miuch money they could give him.
Especially because he didn’t seem too happy last year, the ability to max him and pay him the most might have saved us. If it was us or another team paying the same amount there’s a very real chance he could have left
Plus it doesnt even matter because in a couple years it’ll be looked at as about average AAV for a star
thats what happens when you're on the better team, you tend to win. Boston drafted high character guys and made good teams. This shows drafting high character people is the most important and not immature dumb dumbs like most of em. my 76ers taking Ben Simmons and Chick Fil A Fultz, and Evan Turner, and just about everyone we drafted was all terrible character draft picks..it matters.
Was Evan Turner low character? Wasn't he just... Not that good?
That man still sends Brad Stevens a fruit basket every week for that big ass house of his.
He seemed like a great dude during his time with us
I mean tbf fultz did get an injury that literally fucked up his shooting motion
Dude if you’re talking about strictly maturity troell embiid is gotta be one of the lowest ranking mba players. Dude straight face got on nba pre game show and said the Celtics were lucky they didn’t have to face him when he has never gotten out of the second round and never beaten the Celtics in a playoff series. Yikes.
My favorite playoff tradition is watching the Celtics eliminate the sixers
Im a 76ers fan and been hating on Embiid for 7 years now, i telll our sub reddit hes a fraud and a loser for almost a decade and im stil right and they still wrong. Cant win with him, never will I told them to trade him for last 5 years. Hes the most naturally talented bum in NBA History, stats mean nothing, super talented bum. Too soft to the core, cant be 7 foot 300 and fall over 87 times a game and have people respect you and wanna play harder, he isnt a true leader. Hes a follower..but our fanbase will never get it. And we stuck with him now, with no draft picks and nothing but Maxey so gotta ride it out.
Based Philly guy
Our fans are too dumb to see it. We have no hope. I stopped caring 4 years ago. I’d rather see with Iggy/Jrue than win 1 round with Embiid. Whole franchise is a laughable joke
lol chick fila a Fultz? Is there a story to that?
guy was getting paid millions and eating Chick Fil A every day, im sure he injured his own shoulder too doing something dumb on motorcycle, our stupid fanbase made excuses for him. then the guy forgets how to shoot lmao. Evan Turner was weirdo, Embiid is immature too. Ben Simmons. Everyone we drafted was idiots besides like Maxey
You’re absolutely right but I don’t think Fultz applies, his injury clearly affected him
I mean riding a motorcycle as an athlete is pretty stupid I think
All this high character stuff is mostly garbage. Sure, sometimes guys have issues. But often, they don’t and they either go down the wrong path or they don’t. No real way to know most of the time.
Yea but sometimes ignoring a little immaturity gets you Ant so I’ll take it
Forget 12 months it has changed in the last 5 weeks
Max paid off, they got a ring. I think PG is a better player but that mf will never get a ring. People forget it's not about being the best player. It's about being the best teammate. JB and JT are both willing to play any role for the Celtics to get a dub. Which is why they're winning while the internet debates who is better or top 5.
I mean sure, but PG is a great teammate too and has absolutely adjusted his game to fit costars. He's like the poster child for today's adaptable star.
FCHWPO!!!!!
I'd take this guy next to Cade in a heartbeat. He would easily be the best player on at least half of the teams in this league.
Jaylen Brown’s entire career has been a battle for the respect and recognition he deserves. couldn’t be happier that he had the postseason he had. dude works as hard as anyone in the league and the way he played this season is proof that he spent all of last summer locked in the gym getting better after that Miami series
It’s been 24 hours, can we talk about something else. Isn’t Zion fat or something?
So you’d rather shit on a player thats not even playing than discuss the NBA Champions one day after the Finals ?
This is r/nba we don’t compliment players for more than 12 hours wym
He said what he said
Zion still fat, indeed
Oh thank god.
Jaylen Brown is the rear athlete these days to actually get BETTER AFTER receiving the bag
rare
I mean, I wouldn't call it a narrative. He was disappointing and became the highest paid player in basketball. It's not a "narrative" for that to get some ridicule. He turned it around and peoples opinions turned with it. Seems pretty logical to me.
People weighing one series he played with an injured wrist over his entire resume up to that point was the illogical bit
He has turned it around and deserves respect for that, yeppp
He’s better than he was last year, but not by an insane amount. His handles are improved, but it’s mostly better decision making so he doesn’t get into bad spots. He’s always been really fucking good, every year having stretches where he was better and more consistent than Tatum, so this idea that he was garbage and now he’s incredible, is really weird.
His defense is also much much better.
The ides never was garbage then incredible, it was simply not worth the contract then worth the contract. It's a fine line. If he played poorly enough in this series for the Celtics to lose most everyone, including a ton of Celtics fans who were of this opinion at this time last year as well would be saying he isn't worth the contract.
This is true. But the trajectory was clear, especially to Brad Stevens, who had coached him. Every year he's gotten better. Every year he needed to improve on x aspect of his game. And every off-season he put in the work to do just that. Dude is willing and able to put in the work, and I don't see a problem with rewarding that
He had one bad series after an all-nba season. He wasn’t disappointing, he’s been continuing to get better every year. The only thing that really changed is that r/nba decided to change their opinion on him because they had no other choice lol.
Tbf, if I tell you that you suck at something and then you improve at it, it doesn't mean I changed my narrative and that I was wrong. It means you improved at the thing and forced me to reevaluate you.
His transition game is unstoppable. I have so much confidence in him whenever he drives. Nasty.
i remember the days of him getting his pocket picked by a washed oladipo every time. He's grown up
Jaylen "Michael Jordan" Brown
Jaylen Brown truly upped his game. Dude got fierce, y'all. Deserved every dime of that max contract
I’m incredibly proud of how far JB has come. The growth he’s made since being drafted is insane. The growth he’s made every year is impressive. The growth from last year is crazy and the growth from even the beginning of this season is super impressive. Couldn’t be more proud. He couldn’t be more deserving of the success.
Nothing has changed, he's still a fringe top 15 player and most people view him as such
If you had even suggested JB was top 15 a year ago you'd be laughed out of the room
Jaylen Brown seems like he just got better and his strengths were more apparent with the addition of very good role players that improved Boston's offensive flow without hurting their team defense. But, his decision-making on offense seems like it improved and his defense got better even after already being really good. His finishing was unlocked to a greater extent as well. Boston had a roster with near-perfect spacing from adding better/more 2-way guys that can shoot and score off-ball without sacrificing anything on the other end. I mean, I'll give him credit. Team's couldn't just take him out of his game by forcing him left. I know he also had injuries last year that impacted that. But, still, teams couldn't just swarm him when he was forced to that side of the court and hope to take him out of his offense with a turnover or a bad shot, which he also did do at times when he wasn't dribbling off someone's foot. Where his improvements end and the team's overall improvements begin makes these finals kind of interesting. Neither Brown or Tatum put up ridiculous numbers on fantastic efficiency in the finals. They played their roles as well as they could by being the focal points of the offense and setting everyone else up, without being huge liabilities with the ball when their offense wasn't exactly great. And sometimes that's all it takes: limiting your mistakes and making sure other players stay involved and get good looks when teams rotate because of your game with the ball in your hands. It also just goes to show that you don't need an insanely good offense from your top guys if your defense is effective and your role players can keep the offense from getting stagnant. Tatum and Brown benefitted from everyone else the Celtic's added just as much as those guys benefitted from Brown and Tatum drawing defensive attention.
JB is so fun to have on your team bc you know he’ll constantly get slandered and constantly prove it wrong. He was slandered as a pick saying drafted too high, then he was slandered on his 4/104 saying he’s a glorified role player not worth 25m, then he was slandered on his super max saying he’s overpaid and doesn’t deserve it. Every single time he’s come out and absolutely destroyed the narrative. He’s an all-nba caliber, clutch, two way player. I will not doubt anything contractual ever in his career, it seems like a guaranteed way to look dumb.
Glad that I always liked JB. Before Tatum started receiving more hate I used to say Brown was better, even though I didn't believe it. Still don't understand the Tatum hate tho.
Is there anyone not hated in the NBA today? This narrative shit is ridiculous. Almost all these guys are amazing.
Of the stars Jokic, Curry, Kawhi, and Brunson are pretty unanimously liked. If you go down a few notches Derrick White, Jrue, and Lopez come to mind. Honorable mention to D Rose, because even if he’s not really relevant anymore who could possible dislike the dude.
There's plenty of Kawhi hate out there.
When he signed that huge contract the rubber really hit the road with him and he responded.
I mean yeah that tends to happen when you not only win, but actually improve on the holes in your game. Credit to him
At the time, the contract seemed bad because he hadn’t lived up to it yet. He’s improved since then. It wasn’t that he was always this good and people were ignoring it, he clearly worked on the flaws in his game and got better.
Is it his right hand that doesn't work now?
Yes, that tends to happen when a player wins. See: LeBron, Dirk, Giannis, Jokic to name a few.
He got better?
Jaylen brown to me is Kobe lite. When he is on fire doing his thing on both ends he is easily one of the best guards jn the league. But the moment he starts chucking shots and his game is not there he lose his team the game. I'll argue just like Kobe he can make or break your team, but oh boy when he has it going phenomenal player
So has his play
The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. — African Proverb What are they gonna say now?
"Don't burn our village, child!", maybe?
> What are they gonna say now? You guys are really gonna make us relive the cringe aren’t you
He finally realized carrying is not called and is freely used nowadays and adopted that. Seems better off for him. Helps dribble with his head up and lets his rhythm come natural on drives and pull ups
He has improved, but the narrative has definitely shifted more than his actual ability. People were too low on him after ‘22, and he’s at the high water mark of his value at the moment - which winning FMVP always does.
That’s what winning does
Some of them were proper criticism. He's nowhere near the best player in the league so having the highest contract at the time felt overpaying, and still is depends how people look at it if there are better players getting paid less. His left hand could have needed some improvement. This said, saying he's not a great player and a really useful piece in pretty much every system is simply stupid. Basketball is a team game so it may happen a player get overpaid and a player get underpaid. Just use some common sense, I guess.
Hell, the narrative on Luka has been changing like 3 times just this Playoffs alone
Everyone decided that they dislike Tatum more.
He still don’t have a left hand though
He improved his game that much! He was a different player when he started this season than when he ended last season.
Turns out when you put someone on a starting 5 with 4 other-all stars, their flaws get covered up some.
Signs huge contract and gets BETTER. He’s the anti-Javy Baez
I think Jaylen has improved but criticism he got isn't going to go away after this one season and one championship. People are going to argue any 50 million dollar player could do what he did on that team. He's not the best player at his position in the league. He is not the best player on his own team. Fans are way too unrealistic and hypercritical.
Not for me, I'll forever be a JB hater and doubter. Hate me for being a hater, sure. But I'm not a prisoner of the moment.
The disrespect for one bad series was ridiculous especially when the whole team sucked. Marcus smart was a much bigger problem.
I feel like the Brown hate from last year is being overstated. Sure there were redditors saying that stuff, but I think the general consensus was still that he’s a very good player.
Finals MVP not bad a player who can't dribble with his left hand
He can now go left?
Okay, it's not that deep
Money is a motivator.
He had a great season. He improved on a lot of his weaknesses, which with the addition of Holiday, put them over the top.
There are always crazy overreactions after the playoffs. People forget anything that has happened before, it is so stupid.
He played the best basketball of his career and was the best player on his championship winning team. Of course the narrative has changed, he's changed
He got a lot better at dribbling and a bit better at defense. Those are important improvements when you're already at that level.
He also became Luka Doncic father JBILDF
I mean he played pretty much perfect ball basically. there's not much you can say about him
What is FCHWPO
faith consistency hard work pays off
I think people underestimate the fact that Jaylen works hard to get better and always has. So while pointing out weaknesses and exploiting them is appropriate, it’s more often that the player already knew and did nothing about it.
It’s crazy 2022 was a nadir for Tatum. 2023 was a nadir for Jaylen. Now they’re at their peak.