No one can stop Jaylen Brown this summer

After all of the travel miles Jaylen Brown has already racked up this summer, the star forward from the class of 2015 has to be happy to finally be back home this week. Brown is playing in the UAA Finals in Suwanee, Ga. alongside some of the best high school recruits in the country. That level of competition is nothing new for Brown, but the fact that he only had to make a short drive to do it is.

The Alpharetta, Ga. native has been around the world the last few months. His tour has included stops in Treviso, Italy for adidas Eurocamp and Colorado Springs for USA Basketball’s U18 team. A week ago, he was in Chicago for a pair of high-profile matchups with Brandon Ingram, another top wing prospect in the class of 2015.

There’s been a common thread to Brown’s travels, one that shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been following his prep career. No matter what city, state or country Brown has played in this summer, he’s consistently been a standout performer on the court.

Brown is ranked as the No. 8 player and top small forward in his class, according to ESPN. He has offers from every major program in the country, and said he plans on making official visits to arguably the two biggest, Kentucky and Kansas. Oh, and he’s already defending John Calipari’s Wildcats against those within his own family who want him to go to school anywhere but in Lexington.

A college decision from Brown is likely still a few months away. Until then, scouts will just have to sit back and watch him destroy summer competitions one after another.

There are two words that show up most often in Brown’s scouting reports: powerful and explosive. They aren’t necessarily synonyms in basketball’s scouting lexicon, but Brown has the ability to make them seem as such. At 6’7, 220 pounds, he already has the size of an NBA wing. That’s unusual for someone who doesn’t turn 18 years old until the end of October, and it’s given him a substantial leg up on his peers.

Brown knows he won’t have a size advantage forever, and with the way top prospects are fast-tracked to playing professionally, it may only be two years before he’s on an NBA court. If he gets that far, Brown won’t be markedly bigger and stronger than anyone. That’s why the most impressive thing Brown has shown this summer has been an increased shooting ability.

Brown started off the spring evaluation period hot by dropping 48 points in one game at an adidas Gauntlet session in Indiana in May. He followed it up by arguably being Team USA’s best player in Italy, knocking in threes and dropping in jumpers from mid-range in a way scouts hadn’t seen from him before. From there, he went toe-to-toe with Arizona incoming freshman Stanley Johnson at the U18 camp.

Johnson and Brown are natural comps. Johnson, who is five months older, is expected to be one of the top freshmen in the country this season. He’ll replace Aaron Gordon in the Wildcats’ starting lineup, and be surrounded by the west coast’s best collection of talent. Johnson and Brown are the same size, have similar games and even have identical haircuts. From the looks of it, Brown may be a slightly more fluid athlete.

Nothing has changed so far in the early returns at the UAA Finals. Brown is still stroking from the outside:

Brown said he receives “about 50 to 100 text messages each week” from college coaches. It’s nothing out of the ordinary in the life of a high school basketball star, but it’s only happening because Brown continues to live up to the hype. As the live evaluation period continues throughout July, Jaylen Brown remains a player to monitor.