Jalen Williams landed at No. 22 on our preseason NBA99, ranking the 99 best players in the NBA as the 2026-27 season begins. Jaylen Brown was one spot behind him, at No. 23. Check out the rest of the list here.
The NBA regular season is now in full swing, and that means that our NBA 99 Rankings are also back in action.
As with any ranking piece, there is a lot of controversial takes. Chief among them is our placement of Jalen Williams over Jaylen Brown. When you look at the accolades, it doesn't make much sense. Brown is a Finals MVP, five time All-Star, two-time All-NBA selection, and just last season, he finished sixth in MVP voting. Meanwhile, Williams has made just one All-Star team and nas one All-NBA selection, and he appeared in just 38 of his team's 97 games last year.
However, when you dig deeper into the numbers, it all makes way more sense.
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Why Jalen Williams is better than Jaylen Brown in 2026-27
To make this argument, we're going to have to use Brown's least favorite thing on Earth: analytics. Yes, when it comes to traditional box score stats, Brown looks as good as anyone. But remember, box score stats are just arbitrary parts of the game that someone decided we should keep track of years ago. Those numbers don't necessarily indicate a player's impact on winning.
According to Estimated Plus-Minus (EPM), the best publicly available one-number metric on the market, Williams -- in a down year -- was ranked 30th, while Brown (who many believed had a career season) was at 75th (per Dunks & Threes).
Another great metric to look at is plus-minus data. Last year, the Oklahoma City Thunder were a plus-12.3 per 100 possessions with Williams on the floor. Meanwhile, the Boston Celtics were a plus-6.2 per 100 possessions. This makes sense, as the Thunder were largely viewed as the better team, and Williams got the chance to play with better teammates. However, what Brown can't use as an excuse is that the Thunder were plus-1.3 points per 100 better with him on the floor than when he was on the bench, while the Celtics were actually worse when Brown was on the court than off it (minus-4.6 per 100).
This isn't a case of advanced stats being prejudiced toward Brown. Rather, what plus-minus data and one-number metrics do that box score numbers sometimes miss is catch all the little things players do to help/hurt their players.
Brown is great at the one-on-one parts of the game. Give him the ball in a favorable isolation situation and he'll eat his defender up. Put him on a good on-ball player and tell him his main job is to keep them in front of him, and Brown will use his size and strength to do just that. However, basketball is a team game, and that is the part where Williams has Brown beat.
Williams is a much more dynamic off-ball defender, using his length and high-revving motor to be a menace in the passing lanes (71st percentile steal rate, compared to Brown's 40th percentile). He is also someone who can handle a littany of different defensive assignments. Put him on the other team's best backcourt player or their starting center, and Williams will find a way to make it work. As a coach, having that type of player gives you a lot more scheme/matchup versatility.
Because of their limitations as pull-up 3-point shooters and primary decision-makers, neither one of these guys is suited to be a number one option on offense. So, you are going to want the guy who can do more next to a high-level offensive focal point. Thanks to Williams' athleticism and .5 approach, he is much more useful than Brown when it comes to cutting and attacking off-the-catch.
At the end of the day, while Brown has louder strengths and does a better job of filling up certian statistical categories, Williams' ability to impact the game in many different ways while also fitting next to a heliocentric star like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander makes him the preferred option on a team that is trying to win as many games as possible. Sounds like a pretty good reason to have him ranked higher than Brown, if you ask me.
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