Top 25 NBA Players: Devin Booker & Suns time? Jaylen Brown SHUTS UP Celtics critics | Hoops Tonight
Jason Timpf continues ranking his Top 25 NBA players with Jaylen Brown and Devin Booker. Jason discusses Brown’s ascent during the 2023-2024 NBA season en route to winning NBA Finals MVP for the Boston Celtics as well as Booker’s ability to operate as one of the top offensive engines in the league for the Phoenix Suns alongside Kevin Durant. Later, Jason answers listener question during an NBA Mailbag segment.
Watch players 17-16 here: https://youtu.be/U1zQsC8yf70
Timeline:
00:00 – Introduction
04:10 – why Booker is higher than Brown
10:43 – #15: Jaylen Brown
21:43 – #14: Devin Booker
38:48 – NBA Mailbag
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#nba #celtics #suns #bostonceltics #phoenixsuns #jaylenbrown #devinbooker #jaysontatum #kevindurant #kd #nbafinals #nbaplayoffs #nbahighlights #nbabasketball #basketball #sports
36 Comments
JB finishes great at the rim with his left hand since 2020. The narrative about his left hand has always been exaggerated. The upgrade he did is about protecting the ball, that's it.
Hey Jason! Loving the list and all the debates its creating haha. However i do disagree with putting book over brown. I understand that he’s a better halfcourt player, but I dont think he’s elite enough in that aspect to take him over jb. Players like jokic, doncic, etc are so elite in creating halfcourt offense due to their amazing scoring and high volume playmaking. I dont think book is as good of a scorer and certainly not as great of playmaker. So if you had to choose between them in a draft like you say; would you rather have book who is way less likely to win you the chip as the number 1 guy, or wouldnt it be smarter to take jb who is a way better 2nd guy as he can impact the game in more ways with his build and athlecism. And he can also hold it down good enough on offense while you try to find a guy who can be a legitimate number 1.
Greetz from belgium!
Brunson significantly better than both
I love browns game more over Tatums game I agree he was better this years playoff run while Tatum is there best player over all I prefer browns game over Tatum not being so reliant on a jump shot
i like tatum but i still don’t think he better than brown i’ve been arguin this for couple years
Knick fans are the worst lmao
Jaylen brown wasn’t on anyone’s top 20 before the Celtics won a championship . Now because he’s on a stacked roster all of a sudden he’s better than Brunson , Donovan Mitchell . Hali
What are we doing ?
I don’t need the analytics.
Brown’s a dog
Booker is soft
Tell me when Booker gets his team to be taken seriously beyond the regular season . Nobody fears Phoenix
I don't think Jaylen's reading the floor a little more patiently–I think it's a lot. He often looked like a totally different player this past year.
I'm a C's fan…why would I quibble about the difference between 15 and 14? To me, such a thing is inherently a toss-up; not worth arguing about. I'll say this: Booker impressed me in the Olympics–I mean, he actually played defense. I love that's he gotten bigger and more physical; feel much better about his in-game processing than I did 2 years ago. YEssssss, his fadeaway was a WEAPON this year.
That’s why I have all these losing players above all these winning players… duh.. it just makes sense
You are saying phoenix didn’t need him to guard but they clearly did. They got swept. You’re saying he can do all these things which maybe he can in the regular season and the Olympics but when the intensity turns up like in the playoffs, these abilities on defense disappear. And sure booker took initiative and was the vocal leader of a team who got SWEPT.
Playoffs require physicality
In no world could Book be the best player on a championship team.
Hey Jason, I’m just a bit confused with your mindset of giving JT so much grace for his playoff performances. This isn’t the first time he has struggled in the playoffs while JB showed up. Those who don’t preform to their respective expectations shouldn’t get a nod over those who do, especially if it’s multiple years. Just my two cents.
This is delusional
JB this high is interesting
Hello, Mr. Jason. Love your in-depth analysis. The best to do it.
How much should off-ball movement by a player factor in ranking an offensive player? Without off-ball movement for stars like Shai, Luka, Jokic etc., their 1-on-1 becomes overly predictable in crunch time or Game 7 situations. Half-court offense is necessary but what if the stars are not great off-ball offense creators?
Who ever said Brunson is better than curry should never be able to watch basketball again
Think we just had our first Mic Drop in "Hoops Tonight" histort
Jason what do you think Celtics are better at, D or O? Who on that team was on Luka level (or Jokic, or even Booker)?
They dont really have an elite playmaker, couple of ok ones.. D-white for instance is ok, Jrue is also ok, but not elite..
JT hasnt been playin like elite offensive player for months leading to playoff and also during playoff. KP practically didnt play in playoff, if you consider him elite, a unicorn.
What whole Celtics lineup was elite at is defense – all 5 guys that started in playoff – JT was awesome on D (especially guarding 5s in finals), JB has been at a level from few years ago finally, D white , Jrue, Al.. thats all-D lineup on 1 team. For me their title was more like 2000s Pistons title. They were better offensively then those pistons teams, but they won with defense, they shut down Mavs and all the teams they faced.
Respect for standing up and addressing irrational comments about brunson
celtics hater
garbage rankings
As a lifelong Celtics fan and Tatum defender, I don’t get why people want to pretend he’s better than LeBron James at anything. The only thing he has over LeBron today is durability and energy, but that wouldn’t have been the case only a few years ago. I’d take JT over LeBron on my team today, but that’s because JT is 26 and LeBron is 39.
Much as I love JT, there’s a reason why he’s going to be a HoF player while LeBron will continue to be argued about as the greatest player of all time.
Hey Jason love the show, you mention watching film on these NBA players. As someone who plays, coaches, and is generally just obsessed with basketball. How do you watch all of that film?
Easily my best off season free agent!! If you don’t know… get around it lads…
Top shelf insights
Minus all the B$&@s$&t
Well done mate
Loving your work
“Kind of ran into some issues”. They got steam rolled. 8:00
Knicks fans are so delusional about their players
Mailbag question Celtics fan here, I genuinely do not believe Devin booker is a better scorer than Jaylen Brown, if anything they are at least equal. Jaylen brown is better at getting to the rim, and I feel like his pull up jump shooting is extremely underrated, just as good a midrange shooter as dbook(they get to their spots/shots very differently), I would give the edge to dbook tho as an off ball shooter and off screen shooter. I believe the argument for Jaylen brown booker comes down to if you value Dbooks gap in playmaking. more or Jaylen browns gap in poa defense. I have no problem with book being one spot higher even if I do not fully agree with it. I think both can take steps forward in their “weaknesses” and be even better in the future. Hope they both continue growing and improving and this was great basketball talk
9:12 what you’re saying, has no basketball historical merit. The opposite has been historically true. It is much easier to build championship teams around defensive players with limited offensive skills over offensive players with limited defensive skills. NBA players grow up playing basketball and putting the ball in the hole at one point or another. Almost every NBA player was the man on a team but not every NBA player guards so that’s why it’s way easier to build around players like Jayson Tatum over a SGA because SGA doesn’t take the hardest assignments he’s not good enough at defense for that even though he is a more consistent scorer. It’s harder to build around offensive players that have defensive liabilities, like James Harden, SGA or Steve Nash. Over defensive players that have offensive liabilities like Jayson Tatum, Kareem or Kobe Bryant. They might miss some shots or shoot when a good pass was open on some games but they’ll be impacting the game on so many other levels that that can make up for it for a night or two, but if the scores only score and can’t guard nobody and god forbid they’re a playmaker who can’t hit a J. NBA history is littered with champions who couldn’t consistently score or pass but it’s not littered with people who couldn’t consistently defend or rebound. Bill Russell,Kareem,Moses Malone, George Mikan, more recently Bam & Jimmy and Tatum & Brown have been the only repeat finals appearance since 2020. All four of those players are defensive players with some limit on offense. Bam has had equal if not more success than Luka and he’s not even the man on his team. Easier to build around.
Why isn't this on spotify yet?
Mailbag: Hey Jason, just wondering what you think of all the discourse surrounding Steve Kerr lately. A ton of ppl on Twitter were trashing him during the Olympics for his lineup decisions, and that vitriol sorta started in FIBA last year. I think he did a perfectly fine job in Paris (Tatum wasn't playing well, and Steph just needed to get into a groove). Even before those last 2 games where Steph went nuclear, he was still demanding a ton of defensive attention, so his gravity had tremendous value. Do you think Kerr was deserving of the FIBA and Olympics Head Coaching positions, and what mistakes, if any, do you think he made? Which coach in the league (other than Spo) is objectively better than him?
the devin booker disrespect throughout his career has been BAFFLING. terrible ranking, hopefully you watch the games with both eyes open and your brain turned on this year. booker is clear of TATUM, forget brown. He will be in top 5 talks next year
But you didnt mention that Brunson played amazing basketball most of the time without Julius Randle due to injury. Offensively he really carried that team to the second seed and 2nd round of the playoffs in which they lost in 7 because basicaly everyone was injured on the Knicks including, Brunson.
Defense wins games. Brown ahead of Booker without a doubt.