There’s Levels to this S**t — Jaylen Brown’s Ascent to Three Level Scorer

This was originally posted on Reddit on 4/21/21 so the numbers are a little off, but not by much.

Webster’s Dictionary defines the phrase “Three Level Scorer” to mean, and I quote, “a dude that can get buckets from anywhere, anyhow.” When we think about this Celtics roster, the first person that may come to mind fitting that totally real and not made up definition is Jayson Tatum. Tatum has the rep, and certainly this was the expectation/hope when he was drafted, but Brown’s emergence this season as a three level scorer has been equal parts surprising and exciting. I’ve always loved Jaylen’s game, but even I didn’t expect him to be busting out hesi-pullup Jimbos as effectively and as often as he has this season. Let’s take a look at his numbers, and importantly, how they’ve changed from his breakout 19–20 season (this trend is even more apparent if we go back further, but honestly that’s too much effort for me).

Side note, if you aren’t familiar with the term, Three Level Scorer means someone that is capable of scoring inside, mid range, and can shoot 3s.

Usage

Let’s start with usage. The key to becoming a three level scorer starts with getting the ball and doing things with it (shoutout Carmelo, the king of doing stuff with the ball after several jab steps).

As expected Jaylen’s usage is way up for basically everything. He soaks up considerably more possessions for the Cs, shoots a higher % of our FGs while he’s on the floor and is diming people up at a higher rate. That tracks with the eye test where it’s pretty clear Jaylen has evolved from 3 and D/slasher to secondary ballhandler who can fill the 3 and D role.

So Many Levels, but Which to Choose

Perhaps the most important part of being a three level scorer is that you actually take shots from all three levels, and also pretty important is how often they go in (reverse shoutout Carmelo). Let’s take a look at where Jaylen is getting his shots, and how good he is at shooting them.

First let’s compare number of attempts.

Pretty interesting stuff here. Jaylen is taking about 3 extra shots a game this year, and they are coming in two places, the area between a shot at the rim and the 3 point line (the floater/midrange area), and above the break 3s. He’s sacrificed a few shots at the rim and corner 3s, but for the most part, he’s simply taking more shots and they come in those areas.

Let’s look at how good he is at actually making them by checking those FG%s.

A few things stick out like a sore thumb here, not only is he taking less corner threes, he’s been worse at them, although last year was likely an unsustainable number, I mean nearly 50 fucking percent is crazy (although his disparity on corner 3s this year is hilarious, 53% from the left corner and 26.7% from the right, last year was just about even at 47/50 respectively). Regardless, 40.6% is still really good. He’s worse in that weird floater range despite taking more this year, but none of that really matters because his increased attempt rate and efficiency on mid range shots and above the break 3s more than make up for the slight dips elsewhere.

What we are looking at is the profile of a guy who is bordering on being an elite scorer, and perhaps already is from basically everywhere on the court. For reference, he’s the 7th most efficient high volume mid range jump shooter in the league (min 1.5 attempts), those ahead of him read like an all-nba team: Irving, Paul, Durant, Aldridge (2017 all nba team maybe), Embiid, and John Collins. He’s also efficient at the rim (around top 20 in the RA) and he’s a 40% 3-pt shooter. I think it’s safe to say Jaylen takes his shots from fucking everywhere and he’s good at making them, which brings us to our last point.

But Can he Create His Own Shot

I think the last ingredient to the three-level scorer pie is the ability to generate offense for yourself. None of this catch and shoot, or catch, pump one dribble jumper bullshit. 3 level scorers can put the ball on the deck and get a shot for themselves efficiently either by getting to the rack or a pullup. Let’s jump to the numbers.

Not as drastic as my eye test would tell me, but it’s pretty clear Jaylen is even more comfortable shooting after multiple dribbles this year as his attempts are up for everything with 2 or more dribbles, and his FG% is up on 2 and 3–6 with only a very minor decrease in 7+ dribbles (that’s a shit load of dribbles; CC: Jayson Tatum). I’m not going to deep dive into his pull up numbers, another aspect of the three level scorer, but the trend is the same. He’s shooting more pullups and he’s way better at them, 37.9 FG% last year and 42.9 FG% this year.

I’m going to leave us with a quote from his Draft Express Draft Profile: “Looking far more comfortable on the offensive end some nights than others, Brown clearly has untapped potential as a scorer. If he can clean up his mechanical issues as a shooter and ball-handler, he could look like an entirely different player on this end a few short years from now.” I think it’s safe to say Jaylen has tapped that potential and then some, we’ve got ourselves a 24 year old elite three level scorer.