Auburn’s Brown convinced you will have more options after the ‘fun’ first season in the NBA G League | Sports

Bryce Brown’s favorite games to play last season were those against NBA players.

He said it was happening more than you would think, he said. The former Auburn player played for the Maine Red Claws, who were one of the NBA G League’s best teams when the season was suspended on March 12 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

They had the third-best Eastern Conference record and the fourth-best record 28-14 overall. Parent organizations wanted to see young players at the back of the NBA roster come together according to the talents of their age.

The Red Claws, a Boston Celtics affiliate, had a lot going for it. Brown’s teammates were Carsen Edwards, Yante Maten, Tremont Waters and Tacko Fall – all names that should be familiar to anyone who has watched SEC basketball or the NCAA Tournament in recent seasons.

Some of the NBA people he has faced include Theo Pinson, P.J. Dozier, Oshae Brissett, Naz Reid, Dragan Bender, Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot, Josh Jackson and Sekou Doumbouya. Neither is a star, but everyone has spent significant time on the NBA roster, and the last four times were once first round picks.

“People look at these guys, NBA assignments and how they’re doing. And they look at you to see how you act against those NBA assignments,” Brown told the Montgeery Advertiser. “So if they put someone in your position, they want to see how you are. The other team can look at me too – they want to see how well they can. So I tried to take advantage of those opportunities.”

He certainly did that in his first season playing professionally. When the season was suspended, the 6-foot-3 guard ranked fourth among the Red Claws regulars, averaging 16.1 points with 3.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists and almost a steal in 29.2 minutes . His 42.4 percent shooting from beyond the arc ranked 13th in the G League, and his 125 three-pointers ranked seventh.

Brown wasn’t sure exactly what to expect when he signed with the Celtics as an undrafted free agent on September 25 – just over five months after his last game in the Auburn uniform against Virginia in the Final Four.

The G League has grown rapidly in the last five years, jumping from 17 teams to 28 since 2015. Two more teams, including one in Birmingham, plan to join in the next two years. And with more teams came more legitimacy and talent.

Edwards entered the league as an early second round pick after averaging 24.3 points per game during the All-Big Ten junior season at Purdue. Fall, a four-year-old newcomer to Central Florida, was arguably the G League’s most visible player, not least because he stands 7-foot-5 – no. 99 is averaging a double-double of 12.9 points and 11.1 rebounds. with almost three blocks of play.

Maten, who played for Georgia, was the 2018 SEC Player of the Year. Waters, who played at LSU, was the first-team All-SEC selection in 2019. Brown put together one of the most decorated career goals in Auburn history – a two-time SEC champion and All-SEC selection ranked eighth on the program’s all-time scoring list and second in SEC history with 382 3-pointers.

The experience was not much different from college (minus the time in Maine, which was “cold cold” for someone who grew up and went to college in the South). The players lived at the Residence Inn which felt like a dormitory – they had separate bedrooms but still lived in roommate suites. The team van drove them to exercise and meals. (Brown didn’t bring his car with him.)

The Portland show, where the Red Claws played home games, is small (only 3,000 seats), but Brown said it’s often full. That crowd saw him make 11 of 11 3-point attempts en route to 43 points against Delaware in December, as well as adding at least 24 points in three straight games in February and March.

“I can’t say it wasn’t a state of basketball,” Brown said. “There would be no crowds everywhere you went.”

What was different about college was that every game was an audition. The vast majority of G League players work on one-year deals (though two-way contracts can be up to two seasons). Brown played on the Exhibit 10 contract, which is one season for the league minimum of about $ 7,000 a month. This is how the NBA looked on constantly – not just from the Celtics, but from all teams in the league.

“Everybody gives me feedback,” Brown said. “It’s the same thing – just keep improving my gameplay, continuing to improve my decision-making with the ball screen. But I’ve gotten a lot better at those things. They keep telling me how much I’m improving. They agree with the fact that I’ve had a pretty good season.”

That season is more than likely over. Officially, the G League game has just been suspended, but is expected to eventually be canceled due to COVID-19.

The team discovered at the airport on their return home March 11-11 in Wilmington, Del.

“We were hoping at that point that they didn’t cancel the season. We kind of felt like they would, they would, but we hoped they wouldn’t,” Brown said.

The Red Claws thought they had a chance to break into the G League playoffs and earn up to $ 15,000 in bonuses.

“When they finished it, we were like, ‘Dang. “We ended the season just like that. We were No. 2 or 3 in the G League, and it ended like that. It was kind of tiring because we played so well all year,” Brown continued. “It was definitely something we missed. We felt like we could win everything. “

Instead, Brown returned home to Georgia, adjusting to life under the auspices of the state.

Despite this, he feels like he has proven himself enough during the 34 games he played as a rookie to earn another look next year.

“They saw me play in college, they saw me play freshman year. So at this point, they know what they can do,” Brown said. “They should have seen growth through this season, I would say, from my number from college and in many categories. I feel like I should have a chance as soon as it all goes down. I feel pretty confident about that. “