The St. Louis native has been flirting with breaking through to the inner echelon of the league's elite players.

That sort of leap is not very common, and Brown appeared close to being done growing his game to the untrained eye. But as we all know, he was often the Celtics' best player on Boston's way to hanging Banner 18 this summer.

Not that long ago, even fans of the Celtics would have scoffed at such an assertion in between arguing over if he was an overpay or "a disaster."