Where does Jaylen Brown rank as a Wing in the Current NBA?

[Csfan1984]

25-30

[Moranis]

outside of the top 20 and I frankly don't think it is all that close. 

[jambr380]

Like the first part says, I took players mostly from the small forward ranking on ESPN. Positions are largely arbitrary in the NBA. Kuzma, DeRozan, and others could have been included. Apologies for missing any. I still thinking analyzing Jaylen against the players on this list gives us a feeling for his ranking in the NBA.

I agree that positions aren't always relevant when referring to wings, but I am not sure your poll is going to work correctly if people are thinking in terms of 2-3 positions instead of one. Jaylen is going to 'seem' like a much worse player because people may have have him down in the 20s as a wing when he is probably technically top 10 at his position - either SG or SF.

[mgent]

Middle of the pack (if we're talking about starters).

Say there's 60 starting wings (although there's more because some wings start at PF like LeBron), he's probably somewhere between 20-40.

It's too subjective of a topic to narrow down much further than that.

[indeedproceed]

If you looked at players 6'4-6'11 who have started 20 games and manually cut out the frontcourt guys included, he'd be about number 19 based on WS.

So I'd say he's in teh 20-30 range depending on criteria. 

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Bump to give some perspective on Jaylen Brown.

I know he's struggling right now. I know some of us are down on him, but he is still one of the most exciting young wings in the NBA and one with the biggest upside.

He has far outperformed many of his peers. He has played in big moments unlike many of his peers. He has a supreme workout and mindset.

We may see his ceiling cap out well before becoming an elite offensive player (maybe not too), but he is still a high level player capable of playing against the best in the NBA in the biggest moments.

[Moranis]

Bump to give some perspective on Jaylen Brown.

I know he's struggling right now. I know some of us are down on him, but he is still one of the most exciting young wings in the NBA and one with the biggest upside.

He has far outperformed many of his peers. He has played in big moments unlike many of his peers. He has a supreme workout and mindset.

We may see his ceiling cap out well before becoming an elite offensive player (maybe not too), but he is still a high level player capable of playing against the best in the NBA in the biggest moments.

He also has played much of time this year at SG so you cutting out SG's from your analysis looks even sillier today than it did last year when you started this thread.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Bump to give some perspective on Jaylen Brown.

I know he's struggling right now. I know some of us are down on him, but he is still one of the most exciting young wings in the NBA and one with the biggest upside.

He has far outperformed many of his peers. He has played in big moments unlike many of his peers. He has a supreme workout and mindset.

We may see his ceiling cap out well before becoming an elite offensive player (maybe not too), but he is still a high level player capable of playing against the best in the NBA in the biggest moments.

He also has played much of time this year at SG so you cutting out SG's from your analysis looks even sillier today than it did last year when you started this thread.

1. Discuss ideas. Don't insult please, Mr. Moderator.
2. I stand by my general breakdown of positions. Brown is an off-ball player. The players I compared him to are largely off-ball players. The traditional position breakdowns are flawed. For example, is James Harden a shooting guard or point guard? Does Jaylen Brown's role compare more closely to James Harden, or Tobias Harris? They may play the same "position," but not the same role. I break these down by roles: guard, off-ball, big

[PhoSita]

This season?  Not high.

It's a little mystifying just how much worse he is this year.

I know his role has changed, but dang.

Jaylen last year blew away a lot of the concerns I had about him around draft time.

This year, many of those concerns have returned.

[Rosco917]

I guess I'm spoiled. I look at some of the youngsters around the NBA with fewer years and fewer games that have passed by Jaylen. Jaylen became a starter on the Celtics rather quickly. He has near 150 games as a starter, so his minutes played are much higher than some of the players that have passed him by.

Sometimes I feel that there is little room for him to excel, with the attention that Tatum gets and with all the veteran talent on the Celtics around him eating minutes, he gets lost.

IMO his worst enemy is himself. He lacks swagger, he doesn't want to step on anyone's toes, he's a good kid...a good person. Maybe too good.   

My hope is that he goes the route of Victor Oladipo and just needs a little more time to figure it out.

Where does he rank...not high I'm afraid.

[Monkhouse]

Steven's operates on 3 positions: ball handlers, wings, and bigs.

By definition, Brown was drafted as a wing, and has the body/wingspan to play SG/SF or even small ball 4.

While I believe he's only playing SG out of necessity, due to roster influx of too many wings/forwards, I believe he has done extremely well to use his athletic and lateral quickness/fast twitch muscles to make up. He's also done formidably well cutting through screens, and flying around picks. The way he plays defense reminds me of Paul George's old man to man defense with the Pacers. Obviously, his defense has declined, but he's still been able to glide in and out of picks/screens and use his body/wingspan to deflect and grab passing lanes.

If there is one thing I love about Brown, is his durability. He's shown even though he plays at times with reckless abandon, (many times he has fallen badly,) but even during a scary injury/ailment, (coming back like 3-4 weeks ahead of time in the playoffs,) he has a tendency to bounce back.

Brown is young, versatile, and has great work ethic along with immense altheticism. That to me already has him rated ahead most of wings.

Where would I range him?

If I'm talking about overall talent, I'd rank him in my top 10 for SG, and top 15 for SF. Positions doesn't matter, but I really won't be surprised if at his best Jaylen can average 16/5/3/1.6 SPG with solid shooting, and okay FT %.

He has a far way to go, but he is still relatively only 22. His birthday is also right before mine, (October 25.) ^^;;;

[Moranis]

If Brown tops out at only 16/5/3/1.5 this board would go crazy.

[Monkhouse]

If Brown tops out at only 16/5/3/1.5 this board would go crazy.

Well in his prime clearly more, but the problem is in our offense and how Brown is slotted in his role, until he improves passing and ball handling, he cannot be relied on to create offense too much.

[Vermont Green]

I think it is unfair to try and judge Brown based on what he has done this season.  I have him at 54% shooting on 2FGs and 21% shooting on 3FGs.  He was much better than this for most of a season and all of a playoff run.  He is going to come around.  I see him as fringe all star as a shooting guard once he hits his stride.  He still may be better than Tatum.

[PhoSita]

If Brown tops out at only 16/5/3/1.5 this board would go crazy.

Perhaps, but I would say a lot depends on scoring efficiency and defense.

If he's an elite defender (e.g. Danny Green / Andre Iguodala / RoCo level) and he's a deadly three point shooter with solid finishing from other parts of the floor, maybe getting to the line a few times a game ... 16-5-3 wouldn't be bad.  Not an All-Star, and certainly not in line with our highest hopes, but not terrible.


By no means am I suggesting he will do that, I'm just saying you can't go entirely off a basic box score line to say whether he's turned into a quality player or not.