Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports
Dillion Brooks is the main character the NBA Playoffs never needed.
The role of the NBA agitator has been around almost as long as the league itself. These players come in all shapes, sizes, and skill levels. Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Kevin Garnett were all-times greats who knew how to needle their opponents while dominating them. Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, Draymond Green, and Ron Artest were All-Star caliber players who amplified their impact by getting under the opposition’s skin. Patrick Beverley, Charles Oakley, and Matt Barnes were strictly role players who had to be annoying just to earn their check.
Dillon Brooks has made himself part of this lineage by maximizing his nuisance both on and off the court. He’s done it by blurring the line between hard fouls and dirty hits. He’s done it with excessive taunting after every big play. He’s done it by saying completely ridiculous things in the media again and again, and then acting like he’s a victim.
Brooks is not one of the 100 best players in the NBA, but he’s talked about more often than many superstars because he’s always in the middle of something. In last season’s playoffs, Brooks body checked Gary Payton II mid-air on a play that fractured his elbow and led to a suspension. This season, Brooks has beefed with both Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, got ghosted on a jersey swap by Kyrie Irving, and hit Donovan Mitchell between the legs for no apparent reason.
Brooks saved his biggest and most humiliating controversies for the 2023 NBA Playoffs. Tasked with defending LeBron James as his Memphis Grizzlies take on the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round, Brooks has accepted the matchup with his full bag of tricks: dirty plays, audacious quotes, and not even the smallest bit of self-awareness.
Brooks’ signature moment came in Game 3, when he hit LeBron James in the junk going for a steal. The more replay angles you see, the more it looks like Brooks never had a shot at the steal, and was purposefully trying to hit James in the beans.
That moment between Brooks and James would be spicy enough to sustain throughout this series, but there’s so much more context where that came from.
After the Grizzlies’ Game 2 win, Brooks went on a rant about how he’s not intimidated in his matchup with one of the greatest players of all-time.
“I don’t care, he’s old,” Brooks said of the 38-year-old James. “I poke bears. I don’t respect no one until they come and give me 40 (points). I pride myself on what I do on defense and taking any challenge on the board.”
The quote visibly frustrated LeBron James the next day at practice. Before the Game 3 started, he had a little chat with Brooks.
By the start of the second half, James had been hit where the sun don’t shine, and Brooks had been ejected for a flagrant-2 foul.
Somehow, Brooks wasn’t suspended for Game 4 — just another in a long line of borderline ejection/suspension calls during these playoffs. With Brooks back on the floor, it begs a simple question: how much does he actually help the Grizzlies?
In fairness to Brooks, he has a case as one of the better wing stoppers in the league. He ranked in the 95th percentile of all defensive players this season EPM, while typically taking the toughest assignment on the perimeter every night. Sometimes Brooks will get cooked, but he always competes.
At the same time, Brooks takes a lot off the table offensively. In three games so far against the Lakers in the playoffs, he’s shooting 32.5 percent from the field, 25 percent from three-point range, and has taken more shots than he’s scored points. By all-in-one stat BPM, Brooks ranks as the worst regular in the Grizzlies’ rotation by overall impact.
Brooks is a free agent after this season, and no one knows if he’ll be re-signed. He’s so inefficient on offense, and can be such a big distraction both on and off the court, that Memphis may be better without him. Doris Burke said as much during the broadcast in Game 3:
There’s no doubt that Brooks brings all of this on himself. Most players are his stature are completely anonymous to casual fans. Instead, sports TV shows talk about Brooks like a player who is twice as good as he actually is.
In the middle of the biggest controversy of his career, Brooks keeps acting like a victim.
Dillon Brooks, speaking after practice today, said he thinks the perception of him influenced the flagrant 2 call in Game 3. “The media making me a villain, the fans making me a villain, that just creates another persona on me.”
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) April 23, 2023
Let’s not forget this is how a recent ESPN feature on Brooks opened up:
IT’S ABOUT AN hour before tipoff in Memphis, Tennessee, where the Timberwolves are in town, when I approach the NBA’s most notorious player to let him know I’ll be following him around for about a week.
Dillon Brooks, a man who has earned and embraced the nickname “Dillon the Villain,” is staring into his locker when he says, by way of introduction, “You’re going to get some good stuff out of me.”
Sounds like a man who is being portrayed in the media exactly how he wants to be.
Brooks isn’t good enough to be this famous, but he’s become one of the key figures of the NBA Playoffs anyway. If he isn’t better soon, it’s going to be a short run for both himself and the Grizzlies.
