Since the NBA season tipped off, Jaylen Brown has brought it. Every. Single. Night. People will point to efficiency, on/off numbers, or whatever else they want, but the facts are, JB has been the undisputed leader and North Star for a team full of unproven players that has gotten off to a 36-19 start, squarely in the race to win the Eastern Conference.
And somehow, his pace hasn’t slowed at all. Jaylen has kept up his elite play on both ends through 55 games now, as he came blistering out of the All-Star break with a 23/15/13 triple-double in an impressive win over the Warriors.
Finally, it’s starting to trickle over into some national media praise and attention as well. To be clear, even a realistic Celtics homer like myself isn’t advocating for Brown to win the MVP award. But he deserves to be in the conversation, and coming in the top five and possibly earning a spot on first-team All-NBA would be massive and well earned.
In the latest edition of Tim Bontemps’ famous MVP straw poll, it’s great to see Jaylen climbing the ranks, up from 9th place in the first poll to 6th in the fresh version. SGA and Jokic dominated the vote, with Cade Cunningham, Victor Wembanyama, and Luka Doncic rounding out the top five.
But JB was right behind them, appearing in the top five on 43 of the 100 ballots. That’s a big step in the right direction from the first poll in December, when Brown only made the cut for 11 of the voters. But the Cs have kept surging, Brown has kept dominating, and perhaps equally importantly, he has kept playing.
Brown may have serious MVP case due to games played rule
Of the top candidates, Brown is one of the most consistent when it comes to actually playing in games, which is pretty important when gauging overall value, and also vital under the NBA’s new eligibility rules, which require playing in 65+ games to be eligible for any awards.
Brown has played in 50 games for the Celtics this season, missing just five, putting him in very little danger of missing the 65 games cutoff. For some context, SGA, who is out for at least another week with an ab injury, will be staring at 11 missed games if he comes back as quickly as possible.
Jokic has already missed 16 games and can only miss one more before he’s out of the mix as well. Meanwhile, right behind that, Wemby can only miss four more games, and for Luka, the number is just five. There’s a very real chance that four of the top five MVP favorites end up ineligible to win the award.
Cunningham is the only player ahead of Jaylen who appears to be clearly safe, but his lead over JB is marginal. With two months to go, there’s a lot that can still happen, but there’s, at worst, a very real chance that Jaylen Brown is a top-five MVP finisher this season. And with a hot finish and some luck elsewhere, he could genuinely win this thing.