When the 2016 NBA Draft was over, there were a couple of things that people were talking about. One of them was Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram going 1st and 2nd overall just like it was predicted. The other thing was the Boston Celtics and their inability to trade out of their picks. They wanted to trade for a good, solid NBA star but failed to do so.
They took Jaylen Brown with their 3rd overall pick, an athletic wing who can play on both sides of the ball. He was also raw and still is coming out of Cali. Some Celtics fans liked the pick, others not so much.
Ben Simmons was the consensus pick to win NBA Rookie Of The Year until he injured his foot that forced him to be on the sidelines until 2017 hits our calendars. When that happened, Rookie Of The Year race became unpredictable. Nobody was favored to win it at that point.
The guy that wasn’t even in the conversation before the season started is the man that is now in the lead for that award. Celtics’ rookie Jaylen Brown is loved in Boston. They really like what they have in him, and they are trusting him to play important minutes off the bench.
So far he is paying them back, and he did it big time last night in Cleveland. He was trusted with the starting role with Crowder out after ankle injury. He went up against LeBron James and was able to score 19 points and grab five rebounds, on the road, against one of the best players in the world, in his first start.
Brown, along with Embiid, will be in the race all season long. If he can keep performing like he did in Cleveland last week, the sky is the limit for this man.
