Jaylen Brown ranked sixth in MVP voting last season. Still, one anonymous NBA analytics staffer apparently views the Boston Celtics star as the seventh-best player on a given team. And Brown, who has been at the center of recent trade speculation, fired back at that notion Saturday afternoon.
Analytics nowadays used to discredit and control narratives – Roll the ball out none of these guys better than me on both ends who does he work for https://t.co/ql3skXAutM
— Jaylen Brown (@FCHWPO) June 27, 2026
What initially set Brown off? During a recent radio interview, ESPN’s Bobby Marks said front offices across the NBA have “mixed feelings” about Brown, and suggested that at least one analytics employee in the league doesn’t even consider Brown a starting-caliber player.
“I had one — not an executive, but an analytics guy, say that, ‘Yeah, we view him as like the seventh-best player on a team,’” Marks said.
Brown’s trade value has become a talking point since the Celtics front office recently explored moving him for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Though the Celtics’ pursuit of Antetokounmpo fell short, there’s a belief they remain open to trading Brown. He hasn’t responded to the trade chatter publicly, but he defended himself Saturday after seeing the quote from Marks.
In a series of posts on the social media platform X, Brown shared part of his lengthy resume and pushed back against analytics’ place in the NBA.
“Nobody has won more combined regular season and playoff games since I entered the league 10 years ago,” Brown posted.
He added, “Analytics have / are ruining the game we playing AI hoops.”
Brown averaged career highs of 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game last season while earning second-team All-NBA honors. The 2024 Finals MVP has already put together a decorated career before his 30th birthday, which arrives in October. As he pointed out, the Celtics have done nothing but win with him. The team has reached the playoffs in each of Brown’s 10 seasons in Boston, advancing at least to the conference finals six times.
Even so, Brown has acknowledged that analytics don’t always favor his contributions. In January, he sounded pleased that the Celtics went away from some of their usual offensive practices after losing about half of their rotation, including the injured Jayson Tatum, before the 2025-26 season. Brown said that he was previously discouraged from taking midrange shots, but last season he received the green light to take “whatever shot you want.”
“Maybe the way I play basketball doesn’t jump off the charts analytically to some degree, some capacity,” Brown said. “So I can see why people may think that maybe me being put in this (bigger) role, it wouldn’t be successful, but it’s more than meets the eye. So I’ve just been playing my game. I play off rhythm. I play off feel. I play off what I see. And sometimes, that doesn’t show up on the analytics.”