As the Boston Celtics prepare for the second half of their season, they also need to be focusing on the future. Jaylen Brown only has one year left on his contract after this one before he becomes an unrestricted free agent. And according to sources who spoke with Sean Deveney of Heavy Sports, if the Celtics mess around too much, he could choose to ditch Boston for another team.
“He is a difficult guy to figure out. He always has been,” an Eastern Conference executive explained to Deveney. “If they step up and give him the contract, it is hard to imagine he won’t take it and won’t keep on building up his legacy there. But if they screw around, if he gets offended by the way they approach things, that is when he could look for the door and find a team that wants to build around him. There are plenty out there that would do that. Staying in Boston, though, that’s the first option for everyone.”
With Jayson Tatum being the top guy in Boston, there’s always a chance that Brown decides to move elsewhere in favor of being a team’s primary scoring option. However, as noted by the executive, the Celtics hold the cards in most negotiations.
They can offer him more money than any other team, and if he earns a spot on an All-NBA team this year, he will be eligible for a supermax extension. In turn, they could give him a five-year deal worth more money than anything else he would receive on the open market.
However, if they misstep, he could be out the door.
Brown is putting up spectacular numbers this season and is a shoo-in to make the second All-Star team of his career. The star has appeared in 45 of the team’s 51 games this year and is playing a career-high 36.0 minutes per contest. He is averaging 27.0 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game on 49.1% shooting from the field and 32.8% shooting from behind the three-point line.
Jaylen Brown Sounds Off on LeBron James
The Celtics wing recently shared praise for Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James. After Boston’s January 26 loss to the New York Knicks, and ahead of their January 28 matchup against the Lakers, Brown spoke about how great it was to get to face off against James in the playoffs early in his career.
“I think that experience, you know, experience is the best teacher,” Brown explained via CLNS Media. “Early on, being able to be thrown into high [intensity] moments, where everybody’s watching again, some of the best players in the world, have kind of led to cultivate the experiences that we get to see now. The growth, the amount of basketball maturity, how to win games, all of that comes into play. So it should be fun, playing against one of the, arguably the greatest player of all time in LeBron James.”
Jaylen Brown Expressed Confidence in Celtics
After Boston’s January 21 win over the Toronto Raptors, Brown expressed his unwavering confidence in this Celtics squad.
“I just play the game,” Brown told NBC Sports Boston. “I mean, I’ll let you guys determine what is the options. We’re not number one and number two, I just come out and play the game. The moment you start thinking that is the moment that I think that you’ll start doubting yourself or – there’s no need to come out and play the game any other way than how I normally play. And that’s how I see it. Tonight, we was out guys. Obviously, I would get more attention. But tonight, we had guys step up. We had Payton [Pritchard] come out and play really well. Grant [Williams] came out and got hot. And that’s what we need. We’re a team. So, it doesn’t matter who rolls the ball out or which team is doing what, I got my money on the C’s. I don’t know if I can say that.”