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For the most part, an important aspect of being part of an NBA front office includes an ability to ignore the noise and hub-bub of what goes on outside team headquarters. But make no mistake, the denizens of those headquarters are attuned to the public sturm und drang around the league, and after talking with a few of them this week, there is a common sentiment developing around the $304 million contract agreed to by the Celtics and star wing Jaylen Brown.
And it’s not the shock and pearl-clutching outrage some fans have expressed.
“It is a good deal because he is a star player and that is what they had to pay him,” one Eastern Conference executive said. “I love the people who say they should not have given him that contract. Like, OK, then what should they have done? Traded him? Let him go to free agency? The same people who are beating them up for signing him would be beating them up if they did not sign him. It’s crazy.”
Jaylen Brown’s Contract Will Look Better Over Time
An Eastern Conference GM noted that he Celtics were simply the victims of timing.
“Every year there is going to be a guy who comes up for an extension and the max amount is going to grab some headlines and get talked about,” he said. “But then there will be a next guy and a next guy and a next guy. That’s the way this works. We’ve known forever that this was going to happen. If people did not act mad about it then the sports talk shows would be boring, I guess. It’s one of those things, you gotta do it.”
Indeed, the Celtics were not in a position to do much negotiating with Brown. He was slated to hit free agency next summer, and not signing him would have been another knock against a super-talented but fragile roster that is dealing with the dual disappointment of losing in the conference finals and trading away beloved point guard Marcus Smart.
Whatever the negatives against Brown as a ballhandler and as a big-game player, he is a Top 20-25 guy who happened to be named to the All-NBA second team this year (ranking among the 10 best players in the league), an honor that made him eligible for the supermax to begin with.
The Celtics had gotten away with underpaying Brown for the last four seasons because he accepted a bargain extension on his rookie contract worth $107 million over four years. That deal is slated to pay him $31.8 million next season, lowest of any player on the first two All-NBA teams and 13th among all 15 All-NBAers. They were due to make up for that.
Tough to Pay Anyone $70 Million
But rewarding Brown is not what this contract is about. It’s about the Celtics paying what they must to a guy who averaged 26.6 points and shot 49.1% from the field last year.
“I have heard it being said that, well, I would not be comfortable paying Jaylen Brown $70 million in five years,” one Western Conference executive said. “I get that. I would not love it, either, I would not love giving anyone $70 million. But it is the way the rules are set up and you’re not going to outsmart the CBA, not in this case.
“Jaylen Brown is going to be 32 at the end of this contract. I am a lot more comfortable paying money like this to Jaylen than I would be to Damian Lillard, who is going to be 37 and getting $60 million, or what John Wall got paid or Brad Beal getting $60 million when he is 35. Zach LaVine and Trae Young will be getting $50 million and those guys never won a thing. So if anyone is complaining about how much they’re giving Jaylen Brown, I’d say look around, there are plenty of other guys to complain about there.”
One factor that is worth mentioning, too: The potential for a lucrative new television deal after next season. If a new deal sends the salary cap skyward starting in 2025-26, Brown’s deal could very well look more than reasonable.
“That’s the X factor there, and I think the Celtics know that it is probably going to work in their favor,” the East exec said. “That TV deal is not going to be something that depreciates. It’s not going to go down. It is a matter of how much the spike is and how it is implemented into the cap, the smoothing and all that. But when 2028 comes, what the Celtics are giving to Jaylen, if he is still anything close to an All-Star, it is going to look a lot better.”
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