Boston Celtics top scout Austin Ainge explained drafting Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum decision-making process at the Sloan Sports Analytics conference Friday.

The Boston Celtics hit a pair of home runs when they used consecutive number three picks to draft Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum the past two years. Both players have been right on schedule on their paths to becoming All-Stars and have allowed the Celtics to make a successful transition into a new roster competing for a title in the near-future.

On the Sloan Sports Analytics conference panel “Draft Day Analytics” Celtics Director of Player Personnel Austin Ainge revealed some insights into what they saw in Brown and Tatum.

The more tricky case was Jaylen Brown. He came into college as the third ranked player in the nation out of the famed Wheeler School in Marietta, Georgia, who has produced a slew of NBA players (and is continuing to do so after Brown).

But Brown had an underwhelming season at Cal and slid a few spots on plenty of draft boards. His numbers weren’t quite up to expectations and he didn’t show the dominance in the lane that everyone expected. But context is everything.

Friend of the site Ian Levy was fighting off the sleep deprivation when he tweeted Jayson, but the Celtics’ scouting of Jaylen showed the system he was in was more the concern. This has been an issue from players coming out of Cal under Cuonzo Martin, as Jabari Bird, Ivan Rabb, Tyrone Wallace are all showing a little more potential in the NBA than their draft position indicated.

Cal played in a dual big system that clogged the paint, limiting driving lanes and playmaking opportunities. Brown has excelled in the open spacing of the NBA, something Danny Ainge noted he experienced when he got to the NBA and wasn’t being double teamed every play anymore.

When it came to Tatum, the skill package was pretty apparent. But his deep shooting was the big question. A player of his skill set who shoots from 20 feet is a good player who can be a consistent starter. But when Tatum is knocking down threes and creating from behind the arc, that’s what a superstar looks like.

We’ll have more details on the predraft workouts and what the Celtics saw in an upcoming feature on Tatum. But Tatum’s three-point barrage in the draft workouts has already been reported to a degree and it is known that he impressed the Celtics brass significantly in those workouts.

Players workouts prove to be valuable in testing the contextual concerns of a player’s body of work. The teams work with the player and the trainer to design drills that show how they would flourish in their system, rather than the system of the high school, AAU program and college. College has zone defense and many teams don’t run NBA-style motion offenses or five-out systems, so these workouts are sometimes the only way to see how a player would thrive in a more open offensive system.

Tatum and Brown both made it clear that with more space, the more room they have to unleash their potential.