Celtics’ Jaylen Brown earns his first NBA All-Star starter nod

Boston Celtics

Brown is off to one of the best starts of his career and earned another accolade for it.

Jaylen Brown will be one of five starters for the Eastern Conference in next month’s NBA All-Star game, the league announced Monday.

It will be Brown’s fifth All-Star appearance and first time starting the game. He joins Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, New York’s Jalen Brunson, Detroit’s Cade Cunningham, and Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey among the East starters.

Los Angeles’s Luka Doncic, Denver’s Nikola Jokic, Golden State’s Stephen Curry, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama will start for the West.

The All-Star starters were selected by a combination of votes from fans, current players, and media members.

Lakers guard LeBron James was not selected as a starter for the first time in his career.

With Jayson Tatum rehabbing from a torn achilles’ suffered last May, Brown has been tasked with elevating his game for the Celtics this season. He is averaging a career-best 29.7 points on 49 percent shooting. Tatum is the only player in Celtic history to average 30 in a season.

Brown is also averaging 6.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists. He’s shooting 36.7 percent from the 3-point line, slightly up from his career average of 36 percent.

Beyond Brown’s scoring abilities, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said he has been impressed with how the veteran forward is seeing the game.

“To me, I think it’s kind of where the game is heading is being able to make reads,” Mazzulla said. “Whether that’s on ball or off ball, I think for the great players in this league they see different matchups, different coverages each game and it’s constantly changing.”

“Sometimes heading into the game you have an idea of what teams are going to do, but you don’t know and you have to be able to make those reads in real time.”

As his usage has increased, so have the turnovers. He’s averaging 3.7 per game this season.

But, with the Celtics surpassing expectations and sitting in second place in the Eastern Conference without Tatum on the floor, Brown has demonstrated just how valuable he can be.

The game is set for February 15th at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. The reserves will be announced at a later date.

Khari A. Thompson

Sports Reporter

Khari Thompson covers professional sports for Boston.com. Before joining the team in 2022, Khari covered college football for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.