Our player of the week ☘️ pic.twitter.com/H9YDcHmn4F
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) January 4, 2021
Looks like someone running the Celtics social media disagrees with Tobias winning player of the week. First things first, Eastern Conference Player Of The Week doesn’t mean anything. It isn’t a really award so I don’t know why anyone’s really talking about it. As I write a blog about it smh.
I think on the surface you can make an argument for Jaylen Brown. In 4 games he had some great stat lines
- 20 points shooting 53% 4 steals
- 42 points on 71% shooting, 7/10 from three
- 25 points on 60% shooting 9 rebounds
- 31 points on 81% shooting 5/8 from three
The Celtics went 3-1 in those games including a close loss to Detroit and a blowout win against the Grizzlies without Morant. Tobias was no slouch this week either. 3-0, at least 20 points every night, lowest FG% was 53% and above league average three point shooting including a 3/4 game.
I think when you quickly look at the numbers it’s clear that Jaylen had a better week, especially with scoring. You look at the rebounding and assist numbers, they’re close or Tobias is ahead by a decent margin. Plus the Sixers didn’t lose last week. Plus Harris’ +/- numbers are fantastic. He had 21, 30 and 19 while Jaylen had -1, 22, -9 and 1. Now +/- isn’t everything and you can have a great game with a bad +/- or a bad game and a good +/-. It’s not a great indicator but it’s not irrelevant.
Going undefeated, getting 20 every night while shooting well. Getting more rebounds and assists plus some great +/- numbers, that’s how you win Player Of The Week over a guy who went 3-1 and averaged 29.5 PPG and set a new career high.
At first I thought Juice got snubbed for this meaningless award but when you look a little closer I think they actually got it right.