Despite weeks of speculation regarding the reluctance to strike a deal between Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics, the two sides agreed to a massive supermax contract for Brown to remain in green on Tuesday.
The five-year, $304 million deal stands as the largest in NBA history and includes positives for both parties, with no player option included benefitting the Celtics while an added trade kicker is advantageous for Brown. Either way, both sides likely walk away from the table happy with the result, with Brown becoming the richest player (in terms of contract) in the NBA and the Celtics holding full control over Brown’s deal across the next six seasons.
Obviously, there are some question marks surrounding the deal, with the largest being whether Brown is deserving of a contract of this magnitude. And while, yes, that’s certainly questionable, the semantics regarding the deal don’t really matter as the Celtics really didn’t have much of a choice on whether or not to resign Brown to contract of this size. There were really three options for Boston: resign Brown to the supermax, trade him, or let him walk for nothing.
The Celtics were obviously not going to allow a player of Brown’s caliber to walk away in free agency, and are clearly confident that he will continue to grow alongside Jayson Tatum.
From the immediate reaction from fans of the league, it’s pretty clear that people have forgotten the fact that Brown was All-NBA last season and has only gotten better each year he’s been in the league.
Sure, one can look at his shortcomings as a ball-handler, his inability to go left and his lack of attention to detail on the defensive end, and those are certainly major issues within his game. Though, I believe a lot of those issues are absolutely fixable, it’s just on Brown to recognize his limitations and adjust his game in a way that isn’t detrimental to the team.
Look, I was as critical of Brown as anyone during the Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Heat this past season, and I won’t sugar coat that he was terrible that series. But, it’s important to look beyond just one series when looking at this contract and Brown’s impact on the Celtics organization as a whole. If we applied the same standards to Tatum, then one could easily say that he doesn’t deserve his future extension after his struggles in the 2022 NBA Finals.
Now, Brown’s contract — along with Tatum’s potential $310+ million supermax next season — will force the Celtics to be creative with how they fill the roster around their star duo.
An article from MassLive’s Brian Robb did a great job of digging into the financial implications of Brown (and Tatum’s future) supermax deal, and it’s clear that Brad Stevens will have his work cut out for him during the next few years.
First off, Brown, Tatum and Kristaps Porzingis’ salaries will eat up around 90 percent of Boston’s cap space entering the 2025-26 season, which will coincide with tax penalties that the organization will be forced to pay at the same time, putting the Celtics in a peculiar position in the summer of 2025. The Celtics will likely be forced to take a similar approach to what the Phoenix Suns did this past offseason (which I wrote quite a bit about here), unless they move Brown or Porzingis.
And while there are several concerns surrounding Brown’s supermax deal, both on the court and in the front office, I’m confident that the Celtics made the right decision and it will pay dividends across the next six seasons.
Photo Credit: Boston Celtics
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