most improved player

Taylor Snow

Earning our Most Improved Player award in back-to-back seasons is a remarkable feat.

Winning it three times in a span of four years is just straight-up absurd.

But for a man who lives by the motto of “Faith Consistency Hard Work Pays Off,” such an accomplishment is almost to be expected, as the act of improving is what Jaylen Brown is all about.

Brown won his first Celtics MIP after his sophomore season in 2017-18, during which he saw his scoring average more than double from 6.6 points per game as a role-player rookie to 14.5 PPG as a full-time starter.

He then won it again last season after taking on a more significant offensive role, which allowed him to post career-highs of 20.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game.

This past season, he transitioned into stardom, logging 24.7 PPG, 3.4 APG, 6.0 RPG, and 1.2 steals per game, while shooting 48.4 percent from the field, 39.7 percent from 3-point range, and 76.4 percent from the free-throw line. Every one of those numbers, except for the one in the rebounding department, represented a new career-high for Brown, who earned his first All-Star appearance alongside Jayson Tatum.

Unfortunately, Brown’s season was cut short just ahead of the playoffs after tearing a ligament in his left wrist which required surgery. But up to that point, he had been consistently rising in just about every aspect of his game.

First, let’s take a dive into Brown’s scoring spike. Prior to this season, he had never scored more than 34 points in a game. He reached or surpassed that total six times during the 2020-21 campaign, including three efforts of 40 or more points.

Brown became a far more aggressive and confident offensive player this season, as he saw jumps in his drives per game (from 8.5 to 10.5), catch-and-shoot attempts per game (from 4.3 to a team-high 4.9), and pull-up attempts per game (from 4.1 to 6.4).

Yet, the most interesting part about Brown’s increased scoring was that his total number of field-goal attempts actually decreased. He was simply far more efficient in his shot-making across the board.

Aside from his scoring, Brown’s most impressive improvement came on the playmaking front. He logged seven of his top nine career assisting efforts throughout the season, including a career-high 10-assist performance on Feb. 11 against Toronto. The points he created off assists jumped from 5.2 to 8.7 per game, and that was largely due to his enhanced court vision, a more controlled handle, and the improved ability to make the right pass at the right time.

Veteran floor general Marcus Smart lauded Brown’s decision-making a month into the season after noticing significant improvement in that area.

“His rookie year and Year 2, that Jaylen Brown would just put his head down and go and not understand where he was going,” Smart said on Jan. 23. “But he worked hard, you’ve gotta give him credit. And it shows. That’s why he’s one of the best young players in this game and doing what he’s doing, and doing what he’s doing for this team. So I’m just very, very proud of the way that he approaches every game, and you can see it’s working out for him.”

It's working out for Brown because he approaches every game with an “FCHWPO” mentality. His consistent work ethic and determination to get better every day led him to place sixth on this year’s NBA Most Improved Player ballot, and it led him to earn our team MIP for the third time in four seasons.

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2021 Awards Series Most Improved Player: Jaylen Brown

Marc D'Amico

It’s awards season at Celtics.com! We’re handing out six awards throughout mid-October as we roll through this year’s Celtics.com Awards Series. We may not have trophies or acceptance speeches, but we do have some top-flight Celtics performances to outline. Here we go...

BOSTON - The Celtics had two particularly strong candidates for this season’s Most Improved Player Award in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Either player could have won the award, but when it came down to our MIP Twitter poll earlier this week, it became clear that Boston's fan base very much appreciated Brown’s development throughout the yearlong campaign, as it gave him 52.6 percent of the 14,763 votes that were cast - nearly doubling the mark of 28.5 percent for Tatum, a first-time All-NBA player.

We here at Celtics.com are in total agreement with those results.

Let’s start with the obvious reasons why Brown was deserving of this award: his improvements on paper.

For one, he drastically increased his scoring load as he upped his points-per-game average from 13.0 to 20.3. Such an enhancement was largely due to the fact that he attempted nearly five more shots per game this season (15.6) than he did last season (10.7), but also because of his improved shooting percentages. His field-goal rate rose from 46.5 percent to 48.1 percent, his 3-point clip took off from 34.4 percent to 38.2 percent, and his free-throw mark climbed from 65.8 percent to 72.4 percent.

Brown also saw increases in rebounding (from 4.2 per game to 6.4 per game), assists (1.4 to 2.1), steals (0.9 to 1.1), and minutes (25.9 to 33.9).

Every single one of those stats was not only an improvement from one season to the next, but also a career-high.

Brown also revamped his game in countless ways that did not appear in the box score, such as with his offensive creativity. This season’s version of Brown was more aggressive in driving to the rim, more controlled in his dribbling, more precise and creative in his passing, and more patient in his overall approach.

One game that had all of that on display was Boston’s Christmas Day matchup in Toronto, where Brown tallied 30 points, six rebounds and four assists, while shooting 10-of-13 from the field, 5-of-7 from long range, and 5-of-6 from the free-throw line.

Opposing All-Star guard Kyle Lowry noted following the 118-102 Celtics win how Brown was playing with “extreme confidence” and that his “overall game was just flowing.”

Of that rise in confidence, Brown later explained, “The more you see the game, the more you understand the game, the better you are. As you get that time and that experience, the timing, the game kind of slows down for you. I see the game differently than I did two years ago.”

As much as Brown has matured as a player, it is nothing compared to the way in which he has matured as a person. This season it became clear that he wants to improve the world during his time off of the court.

Throughout the last several months, Brown has devoted a tremendous amount of time and energy toward the pursuit of social and racial justice within the United States. In May, he drove all the way from Boston to Atlanta to help lead a peaceful protest in his home state of Georgia. During his time in the NBA bubble, he continuously spoke out on examples of ongoing injustice and also acted as an advisor to any of his NBA peers who wished to learn more about the cause.

Off-court activity isn’t typically factored into our Awards, but Brown’s seeking of a better world fits so perfectly into the Most Improved Player category that we couldn’t ignore it being a factor. Combine that with all of the tangible improvements that he made on the court, and it’s clear as day that the fourth-year wing deserved this recognition.

most improved player

2021 Awards Series Most Improved Player: Jaylen Brown

2020 Awards Series Most Improved Player: Jaylen Brown