Boston Celtics‘ star Jaylen Brown had a less than ideal postseason in a season that ended in failure for his squad. When discussing the future of the Celtics on First Take, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo sparked outrage in Stephen A Smith and JJ Redick as he gave his list of players better than Brown.
“Durant, Embiid, Curry, Tatum, Giannis, Booker, Leonard, Jokic, Doncic, Booker, Butler, the OKC kid [Shai-Gilgeous Alexander], Murray, Donovan Mitchell, Kawhi, George…Morant, LeBron, AD, Anthony Edwards, and one of my all-time favorites, Kyrie.”
After Mad Dog finished his list, both Stephen A Smith and JJ Redick took their turns ripping into him. Smith was adamant that the list was so insane it could not have been genuine, although he was a little more relaxed with his tone. Redick on the other hand seemed to take offense.
JJ Redick ridiculed Mad Dog for putting guys like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Kyrie Irving on the list because of previous arguments made by Russo. Redick stresses that Jaylen Brown is available, and that Mad Dog has criticized the three aforementioned before for not playing; to put them above Brown after criticizing them before for not showing up for their teams is not a fair take, according to Redick.
It is quite the lengthy list, so it is no surprise that it spurred some controversy. Jaylen Brown is a very good player, and to think all of these players who have had much less recent success than Brown are better than him is not the strongest of takes. Still, there is a good chance that Mad Dog was just doing what he usually does for clicks.