The Cal 100: No. 56 -- Jaylen Brown
We count down the top 100 individuals associated with Cal athletics, based on their impact in sports or in the world at large – a wide-open category. See if you agree.
No. 56: Jaylen Brown
Cal Sports Connection: Brown came to Cal in 2015-16 as one of the nation's top prospects and earned All-Pac-12 honors while leading the Bears to their most recent NCAA tournament bid..
Claim to Fame: Brown was a second-team All-NBA selection this season after averaging 26.6 points - the highest scoring mark in the NBA by a Cal alum.
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In his one season playing basketball for Cal, back in 2015-16, Jaylen Brown showed impressive quickness and leaping ability. He was not a good shooter or ball handler and his game needed much polish.
But he had one tantalizing quality that prompted the Boston Celtics to select him No. 3 in the 2016 NBA draft: Potential.
We have watched that potential gradually blossom over seven NBA seasons to the point that Brown, at 26 years old, now is one of the league’s elite players and the No. 56 entry in The Cal 100.
Jaylen Brown dunks vs. Philadelphia
Photo by Winslow Townsend, USA Today
As a second-team All-NBA selection this season, Brown became the first former Cal player to earn post-season honors since Jason Kidd in 2003-04. He is the fourth Golden Bear to find himself on an All-NBA team, joining Kidd, Kevin Johnson and Phil Chenier.
Brown also has shown a social conscience, devoting his time and energy to support causes that matter to him, including in 2020 when he drove 15 hours from Boston to Atlanta to lead a peaceful protest march in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police.
It’s as a scorer where the 6-foot-7 wing is separating himself from every previous Cal player.
His scoring average of 26.6 points per game this season is the most prolific by any Cal player and over the past three years he has compiled the three highest single-season marks by an NBA player who came out of Berkeley.
Here are the top 10 single-season NBA scoring averages by Cal players:
As good as Brown was most of the year, the season did not end the way he hoped. The Boston Celtics failed to make a return trip to the NBA Finals, and Brown’s performance in their Eastern Conference finals series loss to the Miami Heat was subpar: 19.0 points per game on 42 percent from the field and just 16 percent (7 for 43) from 3-point distance.
But in eight playoff series prior to that Brown produced more than 20 points per game each time. He averaged 23.5 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists in the 2022 NBA Finals, where the Celtics lost in six games to the Golden State Warriors.
In fact, with 1,911 career points in the postseason, Brown needs just 133 points to move ahead of Johnson (2,026) and Kidd (2,043) to become the highest-scoring Cal alum in the NBA playoffs.
His regular-season career scoring average of 17.93 points trails only Shareef Abdur-Rahim (18.1 in 12 seasons) among Golden Bears. He is ahead of Johnson (17.86 in 12 seasons) and Chenier (17.2 in 10 seasons).
Brown and Abdur-Rahim — who attended the same high school in suburban Atlanta — each have 50-point NBA games to their credit. Only Chenier sits above them among ex-Bears with his 53-point effort vs. Portland as a 22-year-old on Dec. 6, 1972, a total he reached without the benefit of the 3-point shot.
Jaylen Brown as a Cal freshman in 2015-16.
Photo by John Hefti, USA Today
It's been quite a climb since Brown's brief stop at Cal, where he averaged 14.6 points and earned first-team All-Pac-12 honors as a freshman on a 23-11 team that was the program's most recent NCAA tournament entry.
Brown was a good fit in Berkeley, successfully lobbying to enroll in a post-graduate class, where he more than held his own against students four and five years older.
He was gone from Cal after one season, and it was the right move.
Scheduled to make just under $32 million next season, Brown’s inclusion on the All-NBA team qualifies him to receive a super-max extension from the Celtics. Presuming they are willing to take the salary cap tax hit — and they have said they want to keep Brown — Brown would be in line for a five-year deal worth $295 million that tops out at more than $66 million in 2028-29, the final year of the deal.
That’s more than $100 million in excess of what Kidd — a Hall of Famer — earned over his 19 seasons in the NBA.
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Cover photo of Jaylen Brown in a return to Haas Pavilion by Darren Yamashita, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
