Tracy McGrady believes Jaylen Brown’s 2025-26 season deserved significantly more respect in the NBA MVP race.
Brown finished sixth in official MVP voting after producing the best statistical season of his career, averaging 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists while helping Boston secure the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. Jayson Tatum missed most of the season while recovering from Achilles surgery, leaving Brown as the Celtics’ clear offensive centerpiece for much of the year.
For McGrady, that combination of production, responsibility and team success should have placed Brown much higher.
“If anybody put up those numbers under those circumstances with Boston, with JT being out and no expectations for them to do anything in the Eastern Conference, they would’ve been a runner-up or MVP,” McGrady said. “To put him fourth or fifth was so disrespectful. That’s just nasty work. What are we doing out here?”
Tracy McGrady believes Jaylen Brown was way too overlooked in last season’s MVP race
“If anybody put up those numbers under those circumstances with Boston, with JT being out and no expectations for them to do anything in the Eastern Conference, they would’ve been a runner-up…
— 76ersMuse (@76ersMuse) August 17, 2026
The final voting was actually even harsher than McGrady’s wording suggests. Brown finished behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokić, Victor Wembanyama, Luka Dončić and Cade Cunningham, collecting 89 total voting points. Gilgeous-Alexander ultimately won the award for a second consecutive season.
Brown’s case was rooted in more than scoring. Boston entered the season with considerable uncertainty following Tatum’s injury and substantial roster changes, yet Brown kept the Celtics near the top of the conference while taking on increased offensive responsibility. At one point during the season, the NBA’s own MVP Ladder moved him into the top five as his individual production continued to rise.
He ultimately finished fourth in the league in scoring and earned Second-Team All-NBA honors.
McGrady’s frustration appears to be less about claiming Brown unquestionably deserved to win MVP and more about the gap between what Brown accomplished and how seriously voters treated his candidacy.
There were extraordinary seasons ahead of him. Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.1 points while leading Oklahoma City to an NBA-best 64-18 record, while Jokić nearly averaged a triple-double. Those performances made the top of the ballot exceptionally difficult to crack.
But Brown’s season carried its own compelling argument. He lost his longtime co-star, inherited the responsibility of leading Boston’s offense and still helped keep the Celtics near the top of the Eastern Conference while producing career-best numbers. To McGrady, sixth place did not adequately reflect that.
Brown may never have had the strongest case to actually win the 2026 MVP. But McGrady believes he deserved to be treated like someone who could.
