NBA: Ranking the top 5 East players at the quarter mark of the season
The NBA’s Eastern Conference is filled with great young talent, and it’s tough to put it rank each of their great starts.
The 2020-21 NBA season is roughly a quarter of the way in the books and the Eastern Conference has been quite the gauntlet thus far. Especially when it comes to individual talent. We rank the top 5 players in the Eastern Conference, through the first quarter of the season, thus far.
NBA East player rankings, No. 5: Jaylen Brown
Jaylen Brown is making the case to make his first all-star team of his career this season. The numbers aren’t better than the other guys on the list but consider this, he’s lead the Boston Celtics to the 4th seed in the East after all while Jayson Tatum (the Celtics’ best player) has missed five games early on this season.
He’s been number one on every opponent’s scouting report and it has not phased him. The consensus around the league is that Brown is a great “second option,” and everyone seems to agree that Tatum is the man on that team. Although I’m in agreement that Tatum is the better player, I think Brown has shown us that he is capable of being “They GUY” on a good team. If you’re the Celtics, you’ve got to feel spoiled to have two guys on your team that could both be number one guys on a championship team.
Here’s the case for Brown statistically. He’s played all 18 games while averaging 27 points per game (8th in the league, 5th in the Eastern Conference). Brown averages a ton of points while still shooting over 50 percent from the field and even more impressive than that, he’s shooting just under 45 percent from the 3-point line.
Similar to Paul George, Jaylen Brown came into the league as a high flying athlete whose knock was shooting. To go from that to a guy shooting 45 percent from the arc is a testament to his work ethic and Boston’s ability to draft and develop players. Brown also grabs 5.4 rebounds per game which are top 10 amongst shooting guards in the league.
Jayson Tatum, who was on my list of honorable mentions for the top 5 in the East, is back on the floor to take some of the workload off of Brown. Brown’s numbers have remained consistent whether Tatum is on the floor or not, so you can expect them both to keep crushing it and for the Celtics record to go up if they can both stay healthy.