It’s well known that Jaylen Brown and Tracy McGrady have a close personal relationship that has existed for many years, so it’s never a surprise when T-Mac goes to bat for his boy. But sometimes his takes are so biased they border on delusion, and sadly, that was the case on a recent episode of Cousins with Vince Carter & Tracy McGrady.
McGrady is still pushing his agenda that Brown is disrespected and receives hate from the media and people within the league. Talking about last year’s MVP race, McGrady had this to say:
“Shading him from things that he actually earned. Like, if you look at if anybody would have put up those types of numbers last year under the circumstances with Boston, with JT being out and no expectations for them to do anything in the Eastern Conference, they would have won second, runner-up, or MVP, averaging 28 points and being second in the East, like to place him what fourth or fifth? Is so disrespectful and just nasty work. What [are] we doing out here, man.”
Again, I can certainly appreciate T-Mac riding for his guy, but what is he even talking about here? He’s now claiming that a sixth-place MVP finish for Brown last season is “nasty work” and disrespectful, which is crazy. JB had a great season. He really did. And he was rewarded properly for it.
I would have loved to see him make first-team All-NBA for sure, and if not for Luka Doncic and Cade Cunningham receiving special treatment, he would have, but let’s just stop acting like there was some crazy conspiracy in place to keep JB from something he simply did not earn.
I love Jaylen, and I was rooting for him to win the award. But he simply did not have a better season than the guys who finished ahead of him. Sure, if you want to argue he should have been ahead of Luka or Cade because of the games played, that’s fine. But when the NBA decided to change the rules for those guys, Jaylen’s fate was sealed.
A 6th-place MVP finish for Jaylen Brown was NOT disrespect
The analytics discourse grew nauseating around Brown, but those stats can’t just be ignored, especially when splitting hairs and holding players to the highest standards, which is what should be done for the MVP Award. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was much more deserving. So was Victor Wembanyama. And so was Nikola Jokic. Cunningham’s Pistons had a better record than the Celtics. And Doncic’s numbers were just better than Jaylen’s across the board.
Acting like the voters formed some kind of unified front to rob Brown is just doing an injustice to the league, the players, and Jaylen himself. I know he’s not the one saying this, but he and T-Mac are obviously close. Making second-team All-NBA and finishing sixth in MVP are incredible, well-earned achievements.
Those should be celebrated, as should Jaylen for the awesome year he had. Pretending there is some coordinated attack against him going on and that he clearly earned better is just wrong and only makes people look bad. Please stop with this.
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