Jaylen Brown joined the 76ers in an effort to win another championship. But with so many big names, how could he be the number one threat?
The Philadelphia 76ers are poised to be one of the scariest teams in the NBA. One of their newly acquired players, Jaylen Brown, is expected to be a big focal point for the team.
Stephen A. Smith alluded to this point on First Take, claiming that this will be the one people will see on a “night-in, night-out basis." That’s true to some degree, but there’s more depth to this team than that.
Implicating that Brown will be the guy is going to be hard to prove. If Embiid is truly healthy, it stands to reason that he would be the guy people look to. Stephen A’s reasoning makes sense; you have a 41-year-old LeBron James, Maxey is your scoring guard, and Embiid is up in the air at times. However, even with all that, you have to think it would be Maxey who gets all the attention.
Smith also stated it would be more attention than he had in Boston, which, if he’s talking media-wise, then yes. But if you’re talking in terms of defending him, then that makes no sense whatsoever. In Boston it was the Jaylen Brown show, considering he was the main option. In Philadelphia, he can delegate to at least three other players that could get a basket.
Brown will get plenty of attention, sure, but he wasn’t surrounded by three all-stars in Boston. Let’s also point out that if he wants all the attention, it would mean he has the ball in his hands for the majority of the time. It’s really going to be a game played by who’s got the hot hand more so than it being about one singular player.
Stephen A was right about one thing: it’s going to put butts in seats, and that’s what the franchise needs. They’ll need the firecracker to excite fans and take them out of that lull of what they expect to happen every year.
Brown’s ability to create his own shot means he will have some attention, but there are other ways that he’ll impact the game besides having the ball in his hands. In Boston, Brown was like the ugly duckling, keeping his head down and saying all the right things. Now that he’s here in Philadelphia, he can be himself and put up numbers that could make him a shoe-in for not only an All-Star vote but also a chance to get himself an MVP.
