CelticsBlog exit interview: Jaylen Brown

Last offseason was a dream for Jaylen Brown.

A Finals (and Conference Finals) MVP, Brown silenced concerns that he and Jayson Tatum could together be the faces of a Banner 18 run. Then, aside from an outspoken clash with Nike and USA Basketball managing director Grant Hill, the good news kept on rolling.

Brown debuted his own signature shoe brand, collaborated with A$AP Ferg to drop a song called “Just Do It,” and started the foundation Boston XChange.

Expectations were high coming into this season, both for JB individually and for the team’s quest to break the 6-year drought of having a repeat champion. Those expectations were wiped away thanks to mounting injuries, poor shooting and multiple late-game collapses to the New York Knicks, adding yet another year to the streak of a new NBA champion.

Brown’s Finals follow-up was far from perfect, but also far from a disappointment. For a third straight season, Brown earned an All-Star nod, but it came in a year where he shot the lowest 3-point efficiency of his career (32% on 5.7 attempts) and had the second lowest eFG% (51.5%) that was just ahead of his rookie season.

Brown’s mid-range game has also seen a slight decline in effectiveness since he converted on 47% of those looks in the 2022-23 season, but his 40% efficiency this year was his lowest since the 2018-19 campaign when he came off the bench. In non-restricted area paint scoring, Brown still converted at a respectable 44.7% of his 295 attempts, but it was again a step down from last year’s incredible overall production, when he converted on 52% of those same looks on 264 attempts.

That may be a lot of negative big-picture elements to his season, but Brown was still, in spite of that, capable of putting up a dazzling scoring performance, finishing with nine games of 30+ points. Only one of those scoring outbursts saw him shoot below 50%. The best of the bunch was a 44-point gem against the Pacers on Dec. 27, a game which came during an early-season rough patch for the Celtics. His 44 points was the fourth highest point total in his career, and he converted on 16/24 shot attempts, nailed six 3-pointers and hit all six free throw attempts during the win.

Scoring production may have taken a step back, but other areas of Brown’s game improved. After a rocky 2024 season from the free throw line, Brown increased attempts at the line from 4.3 to 5.1 attempts per night and hit them at a 76% clip, which aligns closer to his production from 2020-2023.

The most significant leap came from Brown’s playmaking. Brown’s 4.5 assists per game were the best in his career, all while keeping turnovers down to a modest 2.6 per night, just a slight uptick from last season (2.4). With the gravity and reputation as a play-finisher, Brown used that to his advantage, attacking collapsing defenses with kickouts, big man layoffs and post skip passes.

Prior to this season, Brown had just 13 games in his regular season career where he recorded 8 or more assists. He had seven such games this year, including a nine-assist performance against the Pistons on Dec. 4.

What many will remember about Brown’s most recent campaign is the postseason grit he showed. Brown played 36.5 minutes in 11 playoff games on a partially torn right meniscus. The quickness and lack of liftoff was noticeable during the run, and in the games leading up to the playoffs, but Brown hardly complained, putting up a strong series against a physical Orlando team that was headlined by a 36-point masterpiece in Game 2 with Jayson Tatum out with an injured wrist.

For the first round, Brown shot 49% from the field, 44% from three and 84% from the line.

The Knicks series was a different story, both for Brown and his fellow starters. His shooting splits dropped to 40/29/68 with four turnovers a game.

When Tatum went down with his Achilles injury, Brown did play a key role in the team’s inspired Game 5 performance, knocking down 9/17 shots for 26 points and 12 assists, which would be his career-high both in the regular season and playoffs for his career.

That game also featured a single moment that defines the effort Brown put in during the postseason. Just over a minute into the second half, Brown fought over a Josh Hart screen, stripped Jalen Brunson clean, then laid out toward the Boston bench to keep the ball inbounds before jumping up, re-entering the action on the other end, and earning a trip to the free throw line.

When we look ahead to this offseason, some tough decisions will need to be made, both to create cap flexibility and to retool the roster for Tatum’s return. The decision around Brown should be an easy one. With so many questions of who’s staying and who’s going, Brown’s 10th season (and beyond) should remain in Boston, where he’ll have to figure out how to be the No. 1 option for the first time in his professional career.

The biggest growth area, his passing, will need to be centerstage this upcoming season. His gravity as a scorer is undeniable, but it now takes a hit with Tatum and presumably other key scoring options off the floor. That means more eyes on Brown.

Even in a season that didn’t pan out as the smash-hit Hollywood blockbuster sequel to Banner 18, Brown went to war for Boston, just like he said he would on draft night. He was also the one to keep calm and look ahead, despite the gloomy ending.

“This is not the end,” he said.

Losing to NY may feel like death, but next year is a fresh start. When you have guys like Brown that will go to war for their team, and prove it through their actions on the floor, the future doesn’t look so gloomy.