Source: Mike Ehrmann / Getty
This NBA offseason is again showing us record-breaking contracts; this year, the honor belongs to Jaylen Brown.
The Boston Celtic shooting guard has agreed to a deal with $304 million for five years, according to NBA insider Shams Charania. Other terms include a trade kicker, so he gets another payday if he’s shipped out of TD Garden, and there’s also no player option. The supermax comes as Brown was headed into the last year of his current deal, where he was set to make $28.5 million.
Boston brass likely saw how much he improved during the 2022-23 season, where he averaged career highs with 26.6 points and 6.9 rebounds per game. Plus, he was named second-team All-NBA, so we all knew the supermax was kicking in soon.
Brown has also had a ton of playoff experience, having already played in the Eastern Conference Finals three times, and he’s only 26. However, depending on where your alliances lie, watching Brown fall apart in the last game of the Eastern Conference finals against the Miami Heat was shocking. He was forced to be ball dominant after Tatum was injured early on but couldn’t get into a groove, leading to eight turnovers and the end of the Celtics’ season.
A considerable part of his on-court success comes from teammate Jayson Tatum as the duo dominates the court together. Tatum will be eligible for the veteran supermax extension next summer, so it remains to be seen how the Celtics will handle two hefty contracts. Both have spoken about how intertwined their successes are.
“We compete, we push each other, we learn from each other, and I think a lot of our relationship has been built off of that dynamic of respect. And that’s the beautiful part of it,” Brown told Charania in April. “Jayson being the ultimate version of him doesn’t stop me from being the ultimate version of myself. At this point, we’re a part of each other’s destiny.”
Twitter’s aware of Brown’s monstrous contract and is judging him for going missing in the Eastern Conference Finals. See the reactions below.
