He appeared on all 100 ballots. He received 44 first-team votes, more than enough to make the first team in most years. He led a Celtics team through Jayson Tatum’s season-ending injury without a second All-Star and still found himself in the MVP conversation. And on Sunday, when the All-NBA results were officially released, Jaylen Brown was named to the second team. One of his most prominent predecessors in Boston Green had something to say about that.

Appearing on the No Fouls Given show, Paul Pierce made his position clear without hesitation. “I thought he was in the MVP conversation. Sure. And when you’re in the MVP conversation, you should be a first team.”

He then walked through the logic of who he would have removed to make room. “I think if I had to take one person off, maybe Luka. And I know that’s saying a lot because Luka did lead the league in scoring.” His qualifier was immediate and grounded: “But he missed a lot of games. … He had LeBron all year. He got Reaves… Jaylen Brown did the most with the least out of all these guys on the list.”

Luka Doncic led the league in scoring for the second time with 33.5 points per game and received 91 first-team votes. That earned him his sixth All-NBA selection in eight seasons.

Both the Lakers star and Cade Cunningham were initially ineligible for NBA awards due to injuries. Still, the league and the players’ association granted exceptions to allow them to qualify, a detail Pierce did not address directly, but which adds another dimension to his argument.

Brown, by contrast, appeared on all 100 ballots but received significantly fewer first-team nods than Cunningham. Which was why the Pistons guard ended up on the first team, and Brown did not. The math was close. Pierce’s read is that the context around Brown’s season should have tipped it.

Pierce’s framing of Brown’s season as “the most with the least” is the argument in its sharpest form.

“Jaylen Brown didn’t have a second All-Star. A lot of these guys did,” Pierce said. He acknowledged the counterpoint on Doncic’s behalf without backing away from his conclusion: “I’m not mad that Luka’s on there because he did have a spectacular year. But he has an argument, man. I literally had Jaylen Brown fourth in the race for MVP.”

“Fourth in the Race for MVP”: What Pierce’s Ranking Reveals About Brown’s Season

The official MVP voting resulted in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander winning in a near-landslide, with Nikola Jokic second and Victor Wembanyama third. It was a top three that reflected a consensus built on dominant, team-driving seasons from all three.

Inserting Brown at fourth, ahead of Luka and Cunningham, requires accepting that carrying a depleted roster to the playoffs with zero All-Star support is worth more than leading the league in scoring on a healthy team.

Pierce is making exactly that case. “Maybe Cade Cunningham, I mean, you know, but Jaylen Brown didn’t have a second All-Star. A lot of these guys did.”

Jaylen Brown led the All-NBA second team in first-team votes, with 44. Which was more than any other second-team selection, and a total that would have been sufficient to displace Cunningham’s 60 only if the voting distribution had shifted differently.

The gap between Brown and first-team recognition was not philosophical; instead, it was numerical. And it was determined by the same panel of 100 voters that Pierce is implicitly questioning.

His conclusion is not that the voters as a group got it wrong. It is that one specific swap, Doncic for Brown, would have been defensible and arguably more accurate.

The Spurs evened their Western Conference Finals series with the Thunder on Sunday with a 103-82 Game 4 win, meaning the award conversation is already giving way to live basketball. For Jaylen Brown, sitting at home after Boston’s first-round exit, the second-team honor will have to be enough. Paul Pierce, at least, thinks it shouldn’t have been.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​