Jaylen Brown will be able to shoot any shot he wants next season. He'll be encouraged to do so, actually, with Jayson Tatum sidelined and Kristaps Porzingis traded, which should lead to a career year scoring the ball. But exactly how much will Jaylen Brown score in 2025-26? Enough to lead the league in scoring?
It's not out of the question... but it would be a pretty monster achievement. Brown's current career mark for points per game is 26.6, which he set in 2022-23. Scoring 25-plus each night, even in today's high-scoring league, is a feat. But the leap from 25ish points per game to 30-plus points per game is extremely tough to make. The group that usually hovers around 24 to 26 PPG is stacked with great players; Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Cade Cunningham, and the like.
Once you get to the 28, 29, or 30 point per game mark, though, you reach the elite, superstar tier of players; SGA, Giannis, Luka, Jokic. That's usually about it. Joining that group, even once, is a career-defining accomplishment. The reason it doesn't happen often? Typically, the guys who occupy the tier below the top tier are already in the best situations for themselves, and more opportunity to score doesn't come around often.
Brown will get that opportunity in 2025-26 — of course, the circumstance isn't a joyful one, but this is still a rare occasion in which a high-level scorer is suddenly thrust into a role that will involve more shot attempts. Still, a 10-plus point increase year over year, for a player this far into his career, who will now be the No. 1 name on opposing scouting reports, is a tall task.
Shai, Giannis, Luka, and the other scoring title competitors
Winning a scoring title is as much about what you do as it is what other guys do. The other guys, in this scenario, are defending scoring champ Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 2023-24 leader Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo (who might be asked to score about 50 per night), Nikola Jokic, Anthony Edwards, and perhaps Trae Young on a new-look Hawks team.
Thus, "sneaky candidate" is probably the best way to describe Brown's chances at a scoring title. A lot of players can score 30 points one time. Very few can do it nightly, and we've never seen Jaylen Brown try — because he's never been asked to.
But now he'll be the No. 1 option for the first time in his career, and the Celtics are down about 40 shot attempts per game from last year's crew. In a year when the Celtics won't compete for a title, Brown's neon green light to score is at least a fun subplot that fans could rally behind.