The evolution of Bruce Brown
At the completion of his rookie year, Brown had quickly grown into a fan favorite – building a reputation of a lock down defender who isn’t afraid to match up with the other team’s best scorer and won’t back down.
When he was drafted stories came out about his viewed potential in a play maker role and somebody who, at times, can handle a primary ball-handler role. He showed flashes of it during the season but his “head first” mentality would sometimes lead to him making bullheaded mistakes or having a lower than desired finishing rate around the rim.
The Pistons used the NBA’s Summer League as an opportunity to see how Brown would do in more of a traditional point guard role and handed him the keys to the offense. You need to look no further than his triple-double performance against the 76ers (11 points,14 rebounds, 10 assists) for evidence that he can possibly grow into that do-it-all guy that people around him at University of Miami thought he could be.
He finished Friday night’s victory with 15 points, five rebounds and seven assists. Granted its not a double-double or a huge amount of points, but two of those assists were in the fourth during Detroit’s comeback with beautiful pick-and-roll plays with Wood flashing his playmaking abilities.
The biggest improvement from Brown that everyone wanted to see coming into this year was a bump up in his finishing rate around the rim. Tonight he was 4-of-6 from within the paint which was a 66 percent finishing rate, a bump up from his 56 percent from 0-3 feet away and 30 percent from 3-10 feet away.
His biggest bucket came late in the game when he received a pass up court from Tim Frazier and decided to attack the defense by himself cutting the basket and putting up a great finish around the defender. All in all, though the numbers might not jump out at you, it’s when and how he got those stats that show his growth and desire to get develop.