After college, many players try to change their playing habits as they enter the NBA. Troy Brown jr. of the Washington Wizards is that type of player.
Brown had many on-ball duties, while being in college playing for Oregon. The Ducks’ coach, Dana Altman, used the young prospect in the point guard position, taking advantage of his creative ability and his size. After one year in college, Brown got drafted by the Wizards, who tried to change his identity as a player an, after one and a half year, this seemed to work.
The young guard-forward scored a career-high 26 points against the Knicks in December, while he got close to his record six nights ago against the Denver Nuggets with 25 points. As you can assume, the Wizards won both games, while Brown had two of his best nights of his young career. Brown started slowly this season, averaging about 6 points per game on an atrocious 40% in FG% and having some really bad showings in November, while he was adjusting his game to a pretty different role.
Last night, he had a double-double (18 points, 10 rebounds) against Atlanta, his third in the last 4 games, leading the Wizards to their third win in the last four contests. Brown starts to understand his role, boosting up his averages in the first 11 days of the 2020. Namely, he averages 16.7 points and 9.7 rebounds per game in the last six games, with Washington being on a 3-3 record during this time span.
It’s also important to mention that the Wizards key players are facing many injuries. Namely, the likes of Bradley Beal and Davis Bertans are not available, while, all in all, 8 players are inactive due to injury. The quite impressive part of the last six games are his effectiveness and his efficiency in an injury-depleted team.
He is shooting 48% on FG%, while attempting about 13 shots per game. Moreover, he is making the 38% of his shots from behind the arc on 3 attempts per contest. He got 3 times in double-figures in November, while, in the next 21 games of the season (December-January), he scored in double figures in 14 occasions.
Troy Brown junior is a great prospect for the future, but he needs several improvements in order to become a legit starter. First and foremost, the Wizards have to find more capable defenders to surround their young core. They are the worst team in OPPG (30th) with the young ex-Oregon guard being a passable to bad defender (45% OPPFG% in overall), while he is quite mediocre (to bad) in defending in the paint, despite standing at 6.6 ft.
So, it’s quite obvious that “the jury is still out” for the young players of the Wizards as long as their defensive ceiling is concerned and the same goes for Troy Brown jr.
