The Worst Talent Evaluator in the League Weighs In on the Jaylen Brown Situation

An eye-popping evaluation of Jaylen Brown has hit the internet, and it makes no sense at all

May 2, 2026; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown (7) on the court before game seven of the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Winslow Townson-Imagn Images | Winslow Townson-Imagn Images

The Jaylen Brown trade saga is one of the most confusing situations in recent NBA memory. How a team has gone from building around him by adding to the margins to fielding all calls for his trade is hard to comprehend.

On the other side of this, though, is how his value is perceived around the league. Brown is coming off his best season as a pro and is two years removed from being Finals MVP, which is why Brad Stevens is asking for the world in a trade. 

There are reports, however, that other teams are nowhere near as high on Brown (perhaps other than Portland, who seems very interested). A lot of this seems like typical negotiating stuff, with teams trying to depress Brown’s value through the media to get him on the cheap, while Boston is treating him like they're trading prime LeBron James. Theoretically, everyone will eventually meet in the middle. 

But that hasn’t stopped some people from being flat-out ridiculous. 

On SirusXM, ESPN’s Bobby Marks (formerly the Nets assistant GM) relayed an evaluation of Brown that boggles the mind. 

“The analytics of Jaylen Brown are not good … there are some people out there that look at that more deeper than what the eye test says,” Marks said. “I had one, not an executive, but an analytics guy, say ‘yea we view him as like a seventh-best player on a team.’ I was like holy crap.”

“There’s mixed feelings about him.”🤯@BobbyMarks42 tells @BGeltzNBA and @SamMitchellNBA the market for Jaylen Brown isn’t as robust as it might seem.

Listen to the full show: https://t.co/LilkerghDy pic.twitter.com/zSSafnruY9

— SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) June 27, 2026

Yeah, that's where the reactions should start. 

We can debate whether Brown is a number one or a number two option on a team. Hell, I’ll listen to a discussion about whether he’s better suited to be a third option if you want. But anyone who says Brown should be the second player off the bench does not belong in the NBA. It is among the worst assessments of talent I have ever heard, and it makes me think that person works for a team that will never truly become a winner. 

The only way Brown is the seventh-best player on a team is if we’re talking All-NBA, and even on that Brown was voted sixth-best. And even IF you want to say media evaluations of players are different than team evaluations and Brown isn’t quite that good, there's no way he ranks that low. 

If anything, this gives Brown more ammunition in his anti-analytics cause. He’s railed against analytics every chance he could, even mentioning how breaking from analytics-driven shot selection helped him this past season. 

“I've just been playing my game. I play off rhythm, I play off feel, I play off what I see. And sometimes that doesn't show up on the analytics,” Brown said in January. “I think we've changed our approach significantly. I was discouraged a lot of times to take midrange shots. At different points in my career they literally told me not to. So now it's like, Jaylen, you can take whatever shot you want. I was like, sure. So I’ve been shooting as many midranges as I can get up, but at different points in my career, that hasn't been the case.”

Maybe this is a good thing for Brown and the Celtics, because we know how good he has been, and can still be, in Boston. If the rest of the league doesn’t value him as highly as Boston has, then maybe this trade saga is what the Celtics and Brown need to patch things up and move forward together. 

The Globe’s Gary Washburn says he thinks Brown is open to coming back, which would be good news for all involved. 

It’s still tough to figure out just how far gone this relationship is, but if reconciliation is on the table, then maybe there's a good path for Boston to move forward. Brown might want his own team and situation, but if he realized the rest of the league doesn’t quite see him that way, then this could turn into a summer of motivation for him. 

Who knows how this goes moving forward. It’s tough to speculate, so we’ll just wait and see … and maybe hope Brown figures out which team has the worst talent evaluator in the league so we know which game to put on national TV next season.