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Jaylen Brown #7 of the Boston Celtics watches warmups before a game against the Miami Heat at the TD Garden on February 06, 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash does not consider Jaylen Brown the top candidate for the Michael Jordan Trophy this year for two simple reasons: the Boston Celtics have performed better when Brown has gone to the bench, and their head coach, Joe Mazzulla, deserves as much credit for the team’s success.
“Sometimes it’s about the narrative. In [Jaylen’s] case, I think [Joe] Mazzulla is getting a lot of credit for their success this year,” Nash said on the “NBA on Prime” telecast.
“Maybe both deserve credit equally,” he added. “I know there are on/off numbers with Jaylen that aren’t as great as his performances, but I think that could do with Joe mixing up lineups and putting Jaylen in there with the bench guys sometimes, which may influence his on/off numbers. The rest of it, I think, is just the narrative.”
Jaylen Brown MVP Case
Further to Nash’s point, the Celtics are +156 with Brown on the court through his 52 games thus far, and a +247 when he goes to the bench. Advanced metrics also paint a similar picture: the Celtics have a defensive rating of 113.9 with Brown on the court and 104.9 when he sits, and on/off net ratings of 4.5 and 12.5, respectively. In fact, the Celtics’ net rating of 12.5 when Brown goes to the bench leads all players.
The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie, though, has pushed back on the notion that the Celtics are a better team when the 2024 NBA Finals MVP goes to the bench.
“Think the Jaylen Brown discourse is pretty wild,” he wrote on X. “I love the advanced numbers. Think they’re incredibly valuable.
“But using on/offs to tear down Brown this year is off, IMO. In the six games he’s missed, they played HOU on the Rockets‘ 5th game in 8 days and in the first half of a back-to-back, TOR, PHX w/out Booker, SAC w/out Sabonis, IND (a loss), and WAS w/out Sarr, Tre, Bilal, Kispert early (and won that by 45).
“The two HOU and TOR wins are impressive but it’s just such a small sample to be using as representative of what Boston’s performance level is without Jaylen this season, IMO.”
Jaylen Brown MVP Odds
In response to Vecenie, a fan highlighted that the C’s have been a better team with Brown on the bench for the past five seasons. From 2022-23 until now, Boston’s offensive, defensive and net ratings have all been markedly better without Brown.
One wonders whether the latest narrative surrounding Brown could hurt his chances of winning the MVP award, even as he continues to post career-high numbers across the board and lead the Celtics to the No. 2 seed in the East.
As of Friday, Brown (+4000) had the fifth-shortest odds to win MVP, behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (-250), Nikola Jokic (+400), Cade Cunningham (+850) and Victor Wembanyama (+25000). However, those odds could shift drastically if Jokic or Wemby were to miss any more games in the stretch run of the season. While Jokic can afford to sit out one more contest, Wemby is four missed games away from disqualification.
Sai Mohan covers the NBA for Heavy.com. Based in Portugal, Sai is a seasoned sports writer with nearly two decades of publishing experience, including bylines at Yardbarker, FanSided’s Hoops Habit, International Business Times, Hindustan Times and more. More about Sai Mohan
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