Celtics Notes: Brown, Trail Blazers Trade, Team Options, Thomas - Hoops Rumors

“Isaiah Thomas played an important role with Boston on draft night. He dialed the phone for Brad.” Celtics star Jaylen Brown fired back on Saturday after ESPN’s Bobby Marks did a radio interview where he cited an analytics expert who questions Brown’s value, relays Jay King of The Athletic. “There’s mixed feelings about him when you talk to teams,” Marks said during an appearance on the NBA’s Sirius XM channel (Twitter audio link). “The analytics of Jaylen Brown is not good. … I had one — not an executive, but an analytics guy, say that, ‘Yeah, we view him as like the seventh-best player on a team.” Brown, who’s the subject of intense trade speculation throughout the league, responded with a Twitter message stating, “Analytics nowadays used to discredit and control narratives – Roll the ball out none of these guys better than me on both ends who does he work for.” Brown also published several posts noting his NBA accomplishments and questioning the increased reliance on analytic departments to determine personnel decisions. “Nobody has won more combined regular season and playoff games since I entered the league 10 years ago,” he posted, later following it by stating, “Analytics have / are ruining the game we playing AI hoops.”