Jaylen Brown’s contract extension will be a talking point among NBA fans for years to come.
The popular sentiment around the league is that, under normal circumstances, Brown shouldn’t get a contract of that caliber.
However, the Boston Celtics could’ve either offered him that or risked losing him in free agency, so their hands were pretty much tied.
With that in mind, former NBA player JJ Redick tried to explain the logic behind this move and the supermax extension figure as a whole on his podcast.
.@jj_redick reacts to Jaylen Brown signing the largest contract in NBA history.
Full mailbag episode with @talter drops tomorrow. https://t.co/fGiquFGGGU pic.twitter.com/X6W0j8VXJt
— TheOldMan&TheThree (@OldManAndThree) July 27, 2023
Redick explained that Brown is a great player, but he’s not on the same tier as LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, or Nikola Jokic.
Then again, with the Celtics trying to win a championship, they had no choice but to keep Brown around for the long run.
Redick explained that the supermax figure appeared to try and help teams keep their homegrown talents, remembering how LeBron James and Kevin Durant left the teams that drafted them once they became unrestricted free agents.
Other players, like Anthony Davis and Kawhi Leonard, refused to sign these kinds of extensions, so their teams traded them because they couldn’t risk losing them and then get nothing in return.
Simply put, the Celtics could still deal with a potential Brown trade somewhere down the line, and what seems like a crazy deal now may not be so much a couple of years from now.
NBA players will continue to make more and more money as the years go by.
