Jaylen Brown Won’t Have the Richest Contract in NBA History for Long

Jaylen Brown set a record Tuesday for the richest contract in NBA history, with a five-year, $304 million pact with the Boston Celtics—but not because he’s the best or most valuable player the league’s ever seen. Rather, the two-time All-Star found himself in the right place at the right time: eligible for a supermax extension right as the NBA’s salary cap is climbing.

That descriptor—richest contract in NBA history—makes for a catchy headline, or fodder for a snide backhanded insult when discussing the strengths and weaknesses of Brown’s imbalanced skill set. But it won’t last for long because All-NBA stars will keep signing supermax extensions and the cap will keep climbing. Heck, as soon as next summer, Brown probably won’t even have the richest contract on his own team, as Jayson Tatum is up for his own extension.

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In that regard, the NBA salary scale functions similar to the top end of the NFL’s, because that league’s own skyrocketing salary cap means contract records are regularly broken. Just within the past decade, second- and third-tier quarterbacks Derek Carr, Matthew Stafford, Jimmy Garoppolo, Kirk Cousins, Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson, Carson Wentz, and Jared Goff all signed contracts that set a new record for either total money or guaranteed money. That’s to say nothing of the multi-time MVPs—Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes—who did so as well, or the even worse players who did so earlier in the 2010s, like Joe Flacco and rookie Sam Bradford. As a Sports Illustrated report noted in 2017: “Highest-paid player in NFL history” is essentially another way of saying “youngish quarterback who signed a contract extension most recently.”

At least in the NBA, the largest dollar figures have usually gone to the best players. Before Brown, the most recent players who signed the then-biggest contracts in NBA history were MVPs: Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Steph Curry, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook. But back in 2016, a less heralded player signed the then-richest contract: Mike Conley, who was fortunate to reach free agency the summer of a massive cap spike. (That’s the wrinkle that allowed Kevin Durant to sign with the Warriors.)

Conley was soon eclipsed by Curry and others, just as Brown will be before long. But that 2016 precedent also hints at another ripple effect from the league’s current financial landscape. With a new collective bargaining agreement in place, and with the league set to negotiate its next set of TV contracts, NBA contracts are racing into uncharted territory. The new CBA allows for a 10 percent annual salary cap increase, which would catapult the cap from $124 million in 2022-23 to well over $200 million by the end of the decade.

Because the various flavors of max contract are tied to a percentage of the salary cap when they go into effect, that broader increase means individual salaries will jump accordingly. And while the upcoming cap jump will take a smoother trajectory, spread over multiple seasons, than the 34 percent spike in 2016, it will still create a chasm between players who signed extensions in the early 2020s—when the cap was stagnant because of lost league revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic—and those signing new deals now.

It’s like how, away from the basketball court, the increase in mortgage rates since 2021 may contribute to a massive future wealth divide for new homeowners. Or, as John Wall noted in 2015, when Reggie Jackson signed an extension with the same figures as the one Wall had signed two years earlier, market timing is underrated. “I guess they came in at the right time,” Wall said of less accomplished players matching or beating his deal.

Consider, for instance, how Brown’s contract compares to that of Zach LaVine, who signed a new max—not supermax—deal with Chicago last summer. Brown is a better two-way player than LaVine, and he’s certainly experienced more postseason success than the Bull who’s appeared in just one playoff series in his career—but is Brown 30 percent better, given that he’ll be paid about 30 percent more in 2024-25 and 2025-26? That’s an extra $10 million or so per year that the Celtics can’t use to round out their roster depth, that the Bulls can.

That logic applies even more to players who signed 25 percent max rookie extensions under smaller caps. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just finished fifth in MVP voting, and he’ll make just $37 million per season over the next four, as he enters his prime. If the Thunder are ready for deep playoff runs over that period, they’ll have plenty of roster flexibility to add to their young core because their no. 1 option is such a relative bargain.

In Memphis, Ja Morant is in a similar position—once he returns to the court from his 25-game suspension—with an average annual value below $40 million on his new deal. (Missing an All-NBA slot last season cost him nearly $40 million over the course of that contract, because he couldn’t jump from a 25 percent max to a 30 percent max.) And Morant’s teammate Jaren Jackson Jr., the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, will make just $25 million per season over the next three. That means Morant and Jackson will make about as much combined as the top supermax players will by themselves.

Sub-max contracts, like JJJ’s, look even more team-friendly. If Brooklyn ever trades Mikal Bridges, it might be able to command a near-Durant-level package in return—not because the blossoming Bridges is as dominant as Durant, but because his contract is so valuable. Over the next three seasons, Bridges will make just $23.3 million on average—that’s basically the contract Dillon Brooks signed with the Rockets this offseason, for a two-way force who could conceivably be the second-best player on a title contender.

Or travel across New York to gawk at Jalen Brunson, who will make only $51 million over the next two seasons—on a contract that declines each season, no less. Last summer, some folks thought the Knicks overpaid to poach Brunson from Dallas, but Brunson’s improvements and the rising cap now make that deal look like a steal for the Knicks. If they add a top-tier star, Brunson will be a cheap no. 2.

That’s a particularly crucial consideration under the auspices of the new CBA, which contains harsher restrictions on teams that exceed the luxury tax and apron thresholds. Teams with multiple highly paid players—in other words, every championship contender—need to find value elsewhere on the roster, and those that have their third and fourth options locked up for reasonable dollar amounts for the medium term will benefit.

For instance, Aaron Gordon’s $21.7-million-per-year deal carries tremendous value for the new NBA champions, because Jokic, Michael Porter Jr., and Jamal Murray all make big money. Or look at Andrew Wiggins, playing for the most recent champions before Denver. Wiggins is more of a role player than the All-NBA player Brown is—yet in 2024-25 and 2025-26, the Warriors will pay Wiggins $54.5 million combined, only half the $109 million the Celtics will pay Brown over the same period. Is Brown twice as good as Wiggins?

This analysis isn’t meant to suggest that every pre-2023 extension now looks like a team-friendly deal. Just this summer, the Warriors cut bait on Jordan Poole as his four-year, $128 million extension was about to kick in—both to give themselves more flexibility to maneuver around the apron in the coming years, and because of Poole’s on-court regression. Even a moderately priced extension isn’t worth it if the player can’t stay on the court in the playoffs.

And going forward, even as the cap rises ever higher, there’s still risk as teams determine how to allocate their money. The Celtics themselves could be boxed in a couple of years from now, with Brown and Tatum accounting for so much of the cap by themselves. That future is perhaps one reason the team let Grant Williams leave on a sign-and-trade this summer—it’s already planning for the coming cap crunch.

But the life cycle of most NBA contracts in the current environment is that even the deals that look like overpays upon signing will grow more reasonable, and possibly transform into outright steals for their teams, as subsequent summers unfold. Their teams need to capitalize on those short windows because eventually, of course, the likes of Gilgeous-Alexander and Bridges and Brunson will sign much bigger extensions of their own, which will reflect the league’s wealthier new financial environment. Such is the nature of the NBA, whose short contracts—and, increasingly, trade demands—mandate a constant level of urgency.

So on the surface, is it odd that a non-top-10 player who’s not even the best on his own team now has the richest contract in NBA history? Sure. But before that contract is up, when supermax players are signing new deals for some $80 million per year, even Brown’s cap figure might look downright cheap by comparison. That’s the benefit, and the cost, of doing business in a capped league with a booming economy.