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Jaylen Brown's MVP Finish May Be Historic For Wrong Reasons originally appeared on NESN. Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Jaylen Brown's had a phenomenal season for the Boston Celtics, easily the best year of his career. He stepped up in Jayson Tatum's absence and carried the team for most of the season, helping them overachieve and remain one of the best teams in basketball.
With only two games left in the regular season, Brown's averaging 28.8 points, 7.0 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game, all career highs. He's also logged a career high in minutes and has a personal best 22.2 PER.
Accordingly, Brown is expected to finish in the top five of NBA MVP voting, likely behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama. Those would be the first MVP votes of his career.
However, he's also poised to make a different kind of history. Assuming he finishes in the top five and doesn't dramatically improve his minus-5.3 on/off rating before the end of the season, he'll likely finish with the worst on/off of any top-five MVP finisher in the NBA's play-by-play era, according to NBA analyst Lev Akabas.
In other words, the Celtics' net rating, which measures team point differential per 100 possessions, is 5.3 points better when Brown is off the court compared to when he's on the court, suggesting they're a better team without Brown than with him. In that vein, Boston is 8-2 in games without Brown this season.
However, the on/off stat is deceiving. The difference is largely due to the Celtics' bench being much deeper and better than opponents' benches, allowing them to run up the score during lower-leverage situations when Brown comes off the court. Meanwhile, Brown plays with the starting unit and faces tougher opponents for the bulk of his minutes, many of which come at the start and end of games.
Regardless, it's still notable. Brown would be just the third top-five MVP finisher in the play-by-play era with a negative on/off rating and the first since 2011, which probably says more about Boston's incredible bench and Joe Mazzulla's elite coaching abilities than it does anything about Brown.
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