you make an intriguing point, but I think we would be even crazier to sign him for anything more than $10 mill a year. Remember were going to have to pay Brown and Tatum big bucks eventually, and theres just not enough money to go around.
Brown is more expendable than Smart. We have his Bird rights. We can and should pay luxury tax to keep him because our window with Horford is now. If that means you have to move Brown after next year, so be it. If that means you sign Brown and Rozier and let Kyrie walk, so be it. Tatum is non-negotiable, Celtic for life at all costs.
If you took two teams that were identical, and put Jaylen Brown on one and Marcus Smart on the other, the Jaylen team would win 80% of the games.
If you asked every single GM in the league whether they could have Marcus and a 10th pick in the draft or Jaylen, you wouldn't find a single GM that would take Marcus and the pick.
I literally had to re-read Pick's post to see if he meant 'expensive' rather than 'expendable' and nope. I totally agree with your assessment. GMs see Brown as a core talent that you build around; Smart is the type of player you put around the Browns of the world. There is really no comparison between the two other than they are both currently Celtics...and I actually like Smart and hope we can keep him for a reasonable price.
Expendable. Smart is harder to replace. There are only a few guys in the league who can do what he does. There are ~25 Jaylen Browns.
You know who can replace what Marcus does? Jaylen Brown can.
Marcus makes some exciting defensive plays, but he isn't any better a defender overall than Jaylen was last year. In one or two years, Jaylen will be a substantially more valuable defender. He's much bigger and a far superior athlete and works just as hard as Marcus does.
Jaylen is 21. Saying there are other players who can replace him is a matter of when. Could a number of other players give the same value to the C's that he did last year? Of course.
What do you expect that answer to be when Jaylen is 24, like Marcus is now? He will be an all-NBA player, and Marcus will still be shooting under 40%.
The plays Marcus makes aren't just exciting, they're
winning . They result in change of possession. Brown is a solid, versatile defender, but not an impact defender. He doesn't block shots, take charges, bait fouls, disrupt passing lanes. He's not impactful when he's off the ball. He's not a magnet for loose balls. Smart contests more shots, more 3's, gets to more loose balls, deflects more passes, boxes out better:
https://stats.nba.com/players/hustle/?Season=2017-18&SeasonType=Playoffs&TeamID=1610612738&sort=CONTESTED_SHOTS_2PT&dir=1The only place Jaylen is better is bothering shooters with size, like a Derozan e.g. And if you're still on about shooting %, you'll never get it. Don't get me wrong, I want to keep Jaylen too, but they're completely different players.