The Boston Celtics and Jaylen Brown have agreed to a 5 year, $304 million contract extension, according to multiple reports. The deal itself is fully guaranteed and includes a trade kicker, with no player option. The deal doesn’t come as a major surprise after reports of the two sides re-opening discussions this past week. The trade kicker is a nice bonus for Brown, while the Celtics were able to gain some security by not giving Brown a player option for the final year of the contract.
Brown’s deal surpasses Nikola Jokic’s $270 million pact with the Denver Nuggets and sets a new benchmark for NBA supermax deals. Brown was able to have the price boosted by making the All-NBA Second team this past season, after he averaged a career best 26.6 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.5 assists.
Brown still has one year, $30.7 million remaining on his current contract, so the new deal is set to kick in for the 2024-2025 campaign. The 26 year old had previously signed a $103 million rookie extension with the Celtics, and was considered to be a relative bargain over the past few seasons. His reputation as one of the top scorers in the league allowed him to almost triple that amount.
The California alum was set to become an unrestricted free agent after this coming NBA season, but with the new deal in place, he will be tied to the organization through the 2028-2029 season, where he will make close to $70 million at 32 years old.
Here’s a year by year breakdown of the deal and the record setting figures attached to it.
Here is the breakdown on the Jaylen Brown super max extension in Boston:
2024-2025 $52,368,085
2025-2026 $56,557,532
2026-2027 $60,746,979
2027-2028 $64,936,425
2028-2029 $69,125,872
Total $303,734,893
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) July 25, 2023
Brown has been a key member of the Celtics since being drafted 3rd overall by Boston in 2016, but has faced criticism of late for his playoff performances with many considering him a secondary scorer behind Jayson Tatum, who is signed through 2024-2025 (with a player option for 2025-2026). While the Celtics have had plenty of regular season successes, this group has thus far been unable to bring Boston another championship. Boston has reached the Eastern Conference finals in 5 of Brown’s 7 seasons, including this past season where they lost to the Miami Heat in seven games. They’ve made it to the finals just once, losing to the Warriors in 6 games back in 2022.
While Brown is undoubtedly a talented one on one scorer and is a stout defender, he has a reputation as a poor ball handler and is just an average shooter. He made just 33.5% of his 3’s last season on nearly 500 attempts. His size and athleticism (6’6”, 225 lbs) make him a valuable commodity for his position, but paying Brown as though he’s the best player in the NBA will make the Celtics perennially in the luxury tax column. Tatum still has $67.5 million left on his contract, and will also be in line for a max contract worth 35% of the total cap on his next deal. Surrounding their stars could become a major issue for Boston’s head office moving forward.
The Celtics already made a big splash this offseason, trading Marcus Smart in a deal that landed them Kristaps Porzingis, who will be making roughly $30M per season for the next two years. That term was strategic as it will also be the season where the Celtics will be looking to negotiate a new deal with Tatum. Assuming Tatum will rightfully be getting paid more than Brown, the combined salary of Tatum, Brown and Porzingis could be well north of $130 million. Tatum is worth whatever he wants on his next contract, but the deal with Brown has some potential to hurt the club in the long run.
Boston is now tied to one of the most expensive rosters in the league for the foreseeable future, which will limit the club’s flexibility in building a roster around its current core. With Porzingis now in tow, the team is all in on their big 3 maturing together and bringing home the franchises 18th NBA championship. Provided the cap keeps rising with an impending new television contract and Brown continues to show improvement in his shooting, there’s a chance that this deal will be looked at in a few years as a great decision. But without those certainties, the deal comes with plenty of risk for the Celtics.
-Devon Gallant
Twitter: @DevGallant
Photo: Keith Allison. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.