Your guide for defending Jaylen Brown as an NBA All-Star starter
By Ian Riaf
The argument for Jaylen Brown against Bradley Beal
Wins + Defense + Shooting Efficiency on harder shots
The Bradley Beal vs. Jaylen Brown debate is an interesting one. From a high-level standpoint, it almost feels as if Bradley Beal represents the traditional idea of a score-first shooting guard. In contrast, Brown encapsulates a more modern, progressive, lower-usage, switchy-er version of the position.
First of all, I just feel bad for Bradley Beal. It’s hard to root against the man. He’s been loyal to the Wizards and single-handedly have kept them relevant for years. When he is on the floor, the Wizards are virtually tied with their opponent in the scoring differential department. Off the court, well…. well no so much. Beal’s team could have zero wins with that in mind. He could be averaging 40 points per game on 20% shooting, and his name would still be the first to show up on the NBA’s voting dashboard.
So I am going to ask you this? Would you rather have a player who is averaging 34 points on a bad losing team, shooting less efficiently, or a player averaging 26 points, on hyper-efficient shooting on a winning team? Again, I know who I am going with, but this is for you to decide.
Sometimes this happens. Just ask last year’s version of Trae Young.
I love Young’s game. I love his passing and pick and roll play, and statistically, he probably deserved this starting spot. But again, the 2019-20 Atlanta Hawks ended up with the 14th best record in the Eastern Conference, and Trae Young still earned a starting nod. Seems a bit much, but perhaps not, it’s a matter of mindset.
In my opinion, this is the second hardest case to argue. Beal’s stats aren’t necessarily empty stats, but Jeremi Grant is also playing at an All-Star level on a bad team. The brand name helps. It’s not 100% of Beal’s fault his team ranks as one of the worst teams in the entire league, but it’s also not 0%. Yes, the Wizards have had some COVID-19 related absences, yes Thomas Bryant has a year-long ACL injury, but the Celtics have also fallen victim to the injury bug thus far.
Beal’s impact alone has yet to make the Washington Wizards a true playoff team.
And who knows, maybe they will go on a big win streak, and I will be wrong, but as we speak, Washington has a lot of digging to do.
Scoring is really where fans will draw the line on the Beal vs. Brown debate. But let’s look closer at the scoring column. According to the NBA’s tracking data, Beal and Brown are isolating at around the same rate, and to his credit, Beal has shown better efficiency when ‘iso-ing’. But according to Bball-Index, JB is actually taking more challenging shots, with less space and he is converting on a higher rate of these attempts.
Using the schedule argument in the case of Beal doesn’t work. Using Positive Residuals NBA Calendar, the two teams are almost tied in their strength of schedule ranking. Okay, the Wizards have had more rest disadvantage days, sure, but the Celtics have played the fewest home games thus far, and through the first half of the season will have traveled 4th most of any team in the league.
Because of their role on defense, guards can be the most one-dimensional players in terms of how fans view them. Beal isn’t necessarily one-dimensional in that he doesn’t try on defense, but he isn’t necessarily a two-way player either. To give Beal some credit, it’s not like the Wizards pull a “Lou Williams” and hide him on a low-usage wing in the corner.
On a recent Lowe Post Podcast featuring Kevin Arnovitz, the two noted that he wasn’t necessarily “loping” around on defense. On average, he guards higher usage players compared to Brown, although that doesn’t mean we should discount JB’s defensive awesomeness. This comes through his ability to match-up almost any wing/guard on any given night. His diversified portfolio of guarded play-types suggests that he may be one of the most versatile defenders in the league.
While the one-number defensive metrics struggle at times to quantify the impact of wings, the eye test, in my opinion, solidifies Brown as one of the best wing defenders in the Eastern Conference. Compared to Beal, he guarded a wider array of players on the positional spectrum last season as I would expect these numbers to carry over for this season.
So let’s conclude, after a slow start for the Celtics on the defensive side of the floor as a team, they now rank 10th, whereas the Wizards rank 28th. The Celtics are in the playoff picture. The Wizards are not. Yes, Bradley Beal is a better raw scorer, but that is just about it.
The words to use in this argument for Jaylen Brown against Bradley Beal are: defensive versatility, scoring efficiency, a higher degree of shot-making difficulty, and, well, wins wins wins.