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Tom Haberstroh from Yahoo Sports joined the show to make the case that Jaylen Brown isn’t as good as we all think, and he backs up his assessment with solid statistics.
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00:00Ladies and gentlemen, we're very glad to have him on.
00:03From Yahoo Sports, Tom Haberstroh, he has written the article that we've been talking about
00:07for a lot of the show today titled,
00:10Did the Celtics Give Away Jalen Brown?
00:12Why Analytics Don't See Philly's New Star as Elite of Elite.
00:16Tom, thanks for joining us, man. We appreciate it.
00:18Hey, thanks for having me on.
00:19So, Tom, after going through, well, first of all,
00:22what kind of response are you getting from this article from Celtics fans?
00:27A lot of it is, thank you for writing this,
00:30because it's the only thing getting me through this trade.
00:33Believe it.
00:34Right. It is, right. It's kind of strange.
00:37It's like once he's gone, you know, because nobody here can understand it.
00:41I know when it broke yesterday, we were like, Paul, George, I can't believe this.
00:44You know, you need someone to tell you, well, maybe it's not that bad when you take a look at
00:49it.
00:49And I have to be honest, you know, I was very upset about the trade,
00:54but I read your article, and by the end of it, I mean, you should truly be a lawyer.
00:57It is a really good case that you have made that proves that maybe Jalen's not the guy
01:02that we thought he was as Celtics fans.
01:05Well, yeah, I keep seeing that he's a top 10 player.
01:08He's a finals MVP.
01:10But as we see with this trade return from the Celtics,
01:14that they got Paul George's two years remaining on his contract
01:18and two first-round picks, it's clear that the contract that Jalen Brown has
01:25when he's being paid over the next three years, $180 million,
01:29far outweighs the on-court impact.
01:32And you can point to his scoring average and his career-high numbers
01:37and the 56 wins that the Celtics won this year and say, hey, that's a top 10 player.
01:41But the scoreboard disagrees.
01:44When he's on the floor, the Celtics' offense isn't as good.
01:47Part of that is because he takes more two-pointers than any player in the NBA,
01:51but he shoots below average on those two-pointers.
01:54He misses more twos than any player in the league on average per game.
01:59And a lot of that inefficiency has suffered the Celtics' offense.
02:03When he's off the floor, suddenly they're shooting better.
02:07The ball is moving more.
02:08And I think it can be pointed to he's a really high-usage, high-volume guy
02:12that's soaked up a lot of possessions for the Celtics.
02:15But when Peyton Pritchard gets the ball or Derek White gets more of the opportunities
02:21or you see Jason Tatum in games that JB was not playing over the years,
02:25a lot of the guys around Jalen Brown seem to be playing better.
02:30And the stats are what they are.
02:32People are saying the analytics, the analytics, the analytics.
02:35And I'm saying if you think counting whether Jalen Brown was playing or not
02:41and whether the Celtics won or not is analytics, man, my six-year-old daughter
02:47can do that stuff, right?
02:48Yeah.
02:50Yeah, Tom, it's really striking.
02:54You had a stat in here.
02:55You mentioned Peyton Pritchard and Derek White.
02:57And you, like, broke down.
03:00It says no player in the NBA lowers the points that his teammates score while on the court
03:05with him more than Jalen Brown.
03:07He lops off four points per 100 from each of the four teammates that share the court with
03:13him.
03:13That is astounding.
03:15Well, I mean, when you look at the fact that he is not a playmaker, I say that with recognition
03:22that in the playoffs against the Sixers, he had more turnovers than assists.
03:25And that has happened quite a bit in Jalen Brown's career.
03:28And that's not what you see from superstars.
03:31Luka Doncic, Giannis Anetokounmpo, LeBron James, Shea Gilgis-Alexander.
03:35They don't have negative turnover ratios in playoff series.
03:39But Jalen Brown has had 12 of them in his career, which is the same number of times that
03:44he's had a positive assist-to-turnover ratio in a playoff series.
03:49So think about that.
03:50This happens quite a bit, is that he is not a guy that is going to be the engine of
03:55your
03:55offense when he makes everybody else around him better.
03:57And in fact, you see Peyton Pritchard in the 10 games that he did not have to play with
04:02Jalen Brown, he was putting up star numbers.
04:0525 points per game, 7 assists per game, 5 rebounds per game.
04:08Peyton Pritchard, 6-1, putting up big-time numbers, and not just in the games that Jalen
04:13Brown didn't play.
04:14He seemed to level up when he was in the same game with Jalen Brown and just getting those
04:20opportunities against second units.
04:22Of course, you're going to have more efficient outings.
04:24But this is, you know, this part of the explanation why Brad Stevens is willing to make the deal
04:29that he did is Bill Simmons has the Ewing theory that sometimes stars are dragging down
04:35the team, and maybe after that star player leaves, the team suddenly flourishes without
04:40that guy.
04:41I'm not saying that the Celtics are going to be a 56-win team next year, but I think there
04:45is something to it that he isn't bringing the best out of his teammates, and maybe his
04:49defensive impact is not the same as his reputation.
04:52And it really is hard to reconcile the star accolades of Jalen Brown and also the fact that with
05:01him not in uniform, Celtics are 36-6 over the last three seasons.
05:06So that is astounding.
05:08And it's not the case for Jason Tandem.
05:09Yes, without him this year, the Celtics were the second seed for the majority of the season.
05:14But the on-off splits are not nearly as devastating.
05:20When you look at that, off-court numbers for Jason Tatum are not nearly as tough as they
05:25are when it comes to Jalen Brown.
05:26Tom, this is a fascinating conversation.
05:28It's great to have you on.
05:29You said, you tweeted out that you think this might be one of the bigger trades where it's
05:35a lose-lose scenario.
05:37Just your thoughts on why this might be a bad trade, not only for the Celtics, but also
05:41for the Sixers.
05:43Well, the Sixers, of course, when you get a guy like Jalen Brown, you're going to get
05:46a high usage, just a tough, bruising, downhill guy.
05:51But you're not going to get a good shooter.
05:53He is a below-average three-point shooter, not a guy that you can kick out to and on those
05:59pull-ups.
05:59He's not a spacer like you need around Joel Embiid.
06:02And Tyrese Maxey is way more efficient.
06:06He can also drop 30 a night like Jalen Brown.
06:09He's going to do it on fewer shots and fewer turnovers.
06:12And so you add Jalen Brown to that mix.
06:15They don't have really much shooting outside of Tyrese Maxey.
06:19And Joel Embiid is going to want tons of touches.
06:22Tyrese Maxey deserves tons of touches.
06:25And when you insert Jalen Brown into the equation and the vengeance that he's going to want to
06:30have after getting traded by the Boston Celtics, I just don't see that he is going to be willing
06:37to take a backseat to those guys and take a step back in terms of his usage rate.
06:41I think he wants to do more.
06:43And so I think he's going to go John Wick on everybody next season, including the Boston Celtics.
06:48And I don't think he's going to have the same sort of efficiency.
06:52And so I think when you look at Jalen Brown going into the 76ers organization, he's also going to be
06:59expecting a two-year extension.
07:01You can logically say that the Celtics were not willing to go deep on an additional two years he's eligible
07:08for at $70 million per year,
07:10which would, guys.
07:12They call me an analytics guy, but, again, $180 million coming to Jalen Brown in the next three years guaranteed.
07:19And then you have a two-year extension with $140 million on top of that.
07:23That is $320 million that potentially the Sixers are going to be adding to their payroll for Jalen Brown if
07:30they agree to an extension.
07:31So I do think that there is potential for them to regret making this trade down the line if he
07:37is not willing to take a backseat
07:39when necessary to Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey.
07:42Tyrese Maxey is as good of a scoring guard as you'll find in the NBA,
07:45and I just wonder if he's going to lose a lot of touches and the offense will suffer at times
07:49with Jalen Brown trying to make a statement about where he is in today's NBA.
07:53All right, we're talking to Tom Haverstrow from Yahoo Sports.
07:56This is really a fascinating article, Why Analytics Don't See Philly's New Star as the Elite of the Elite.
08:01So I read it, and as I said, you make a very compelling case.
08:03The numbers are great, kind of eye-opening and shocking, to be quite honest.
08:06But then afterwards, you step back and you go, but hang on.
08:10This guy was the MVP two years ago of the finals and was excellent during that playoff run.
08:19On top of that, he did, without Jason Tatum, bring this team to be the two-seed
08:25on a year that everyone thought they were going to be awful.
08:27How do you reconcile the two, the analytics and then the fact that with our own eyes,
08:31we've seen him rise to the occasion when you needed him?
08:35Well, let's also remember that that was not a unanimous finals MVP, okay?
08:40He did win the finals MVP, but it was split.
08:43Gary Washburn also voted for Jason Tatum, one of the four voters for that finals MVP.
08:50So it wasn't like it was a unanimous choice like we see typically in the finals MVP.
08:55I will also say that it has been kind of rocky when you look at the overall ledger of Jalen
09:03Brown's playoff career.
09:05My brother, big Celtics fan, remembers that 2023 Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat,
09:13which he had eight turnovers, and it was a disaster.
09:17And at that time, there were a lot of Celtics fans who were not happy with his postseason performance.
09:21And then, of course, washed all of that away the next year in 2024 with that pretty sensational playoff run.
09:28But still, it wasn't unanimous that Jason Tatum wasn't the finals MVP that year, splitting the vote 7 to 4.
09:34And I will also say, look, man, it's a tough sport to analyze.
09:3956 wins from a team that lost Jason Tatum for the majority of the year.
09:42It's hard to argue that Jalen Brown wasn't a big help to the Celtics.
09:47But there's another side to this story is that the Celtics continually year after year have won without Jalen Brown.
09:55And obviously, Brad Stevens is here saying, we believe that we can still be a title contender without Jalen Brown,
10:01despite all of his accolades over the years.
10:03Remember, everyone in the NBA, the executives voted Brad Stevens as the executive of the year this year.
10:09And that is an executive award, not a media award.
10:13And so the media gave Jalen Brown second-team All-NBA just one vote away from – or I guess
10:20Kate Cunningham had an exemption
10:22or else Jalen Brown would have been a first-team All-NBA.
10:24But that's media.
10:25The executives, clearly with this return with the Philadelphia 76ers, it was not as frothy of a return as many
10:32expected in the media.
10:33But I think there is a disconnect between what the media thinks of Jalen Brown and also what the executives
10:39in the market around the league.
10:40Clearly, Brad Stevens decided something happened, something had to have changed in the organization, their value of Jalen Brown,
10:49because I am stunned that he was traded for this return.
10:54But given all the numbers and given all the talk about how many times he's been floated in trades,
10:59whether it's Kevin Durant or Yonathan Adekumpo or Kawhi Leonard, what have you,
11:04at some point Brad Stevens and the organization decided to split up their duo.
11:09And it is still surprising, even though I think Jalen Brown is probably more of a top 25 player in
11:14my book than a top 10 player.
11:16But still, Paul George on that contract, yeah, that's a surprise.
11:19Well, Tom, you got me thinking.
11:20And that's a dangerous thing because I came in being extremely pissed about this.
11:26But you're reminding me of those playoff moments, the times he dribbled off his foot, you know, in big time,
11:32you know, spots.
11:34Yeah, it's a great article because at least it gives you the tools that if you need something to help
11:40you go to sleep at night as a Celtics fan,
11:43this might be the thing.
11:44It's a good bedtime story to read, Tom, if anything.
11:48Yeah, I'm going to read it to my daughters here, my nine-year-old and my son, and we'll see
11:51what they think of it.
11:53Awesome, Tom.
11:53Hey, thanks so much for coming on.
11:54We really appreciate it.
11:56You got it, guys.
11:56Appreciate it, man.
11:57Thanks.
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