Forgive me if this has been stated, but why didn't the Celts extend Jaylen prior to this season and lock him up ?
Did Brown and his agent make an offer to Ainge this summer for an extension and were turned down ?
So many of these players seem to think if they are a starter with some All-Star potential, then they deserve a max contract. That's crazy. Think of all the past players who would have demanded the max and broken up great teams ..... Havlicek in the 60's, JoJo, Cedric Maxwell, McHale, Ray Allen, just to name a few. These crazy salaries are going to eventually hurt the league. I'm hoping we can keep Brown, Tatum and Hayward long term, but we can't pay all three max money along with Kemba Walker.
There was some report that they were miles apart in negotiations so talks broke down. From the sounds of it, Ainge low-balled Jaylen.
If I were Jaylen, I would accept nothing less than the max. I rated him as a borderline All-Star already. Nevermind potential. Borderline All star at his age. Add in opportunity for improvement. That is max money. No doubt.
Edit: I found the thing I was thinking of. Not exactly how I remembered it.
NBA Central @TheNBACentral
The chances are "pretty slim" on a contract extension between the Boston Celtics and Jaylen Brown, per @SeanDeveney
Brown’s camp believes his value is closer to Ben Simmons and Jamal Murray’s 5yr /$170M contract extension rather than Caris LeVert’s 3 yr/$52.5M extension.
Doesn't say Ainge offered the LeVert figure. I misremembered that and thought it was an offer.
But it does strongly imply that Ainge offered him a figure that's quite close to what LeVert got, which is an insultingly low offer. If I were Jaylen I would've sent a trade request, doesn't make much sense to play for an FO that doesn't value you as much as they should and compete against their favourites for playing time and shots in a contract year.
I don't really think they would have actually offered him the Levert deal. The quote just sets up a range of what similar players to Jaylen have signed.
Levert has been injured essentially most of his career if you include his time at Michigan. Even though he has showed arguably a bit more than Jalen when healthy, Jalen's durability puts him well outside the Levert contract range.
I think the Celtics mostly viewed it as a 'we're not going to be able to give you an offer that you wouldn't find insulting so we'd rather just wait until free agency.'
The news about the Celtics approaching Jalen on an extension is more to gauge where Jaylen feels he is at rather than actually trying to put together an extension that Jalen would accept.
I disagree that LeVert is better than Jaylen, even when healthy. Jaylen's counting stats imo have been hamstrung by a volatile environment around him while LeVert got a bunch of shots whenever he was healthy enough to step on the court, and Jaylen has put up great numbers whenever he gets the opportunity.
LeVert takes .4 more shots per 36 over their careers, scoring .4 more points per 36. They are comparable rebounders, but LeVert is a much better passer. Brown is the better defender overall, but LeVert does generate more steals per 36. Neither is much of a shot blocker. Brown has been much healthier, but he also has started a far larger percentage of games than LeVert has, which obviously works both ways on the stats. And let's be clear the numbers are comparable overall and that is with LeVert missing or being hampered by injuries far more often. Clearly his injuries factor significantly in a contract offer, but LeVert has been the better overall player when he has been healthy and he showed what he can really do in Brooklyn's playoff series against the Sixers when he averaged 21/4.5/3 with a TS% of 61.2. Obviously a 5 game sample size isn't great, but that was the healthiest LeVert was after he first went down a few weeks into the season (and he was looking like a potential monster before he went down in early November). I'd give Brown a bigger contract because of LeVert's health, but if I knew LeVert was going to have similar health to Brown, I'd give LeVert the bigger contract as he has more top end potential. The injury concerns are just scary with him and he isn't a generational talent, like Embiid, where you gladly take the risk on a big contract.
Yeah, I don't think comparing Jaylen to a fully healthy Caris LeVert is a knock at all. Before he started his long trail of injuries he was considered a lock to be a top of the draft player. Talent is not the problem with LeVert. If he can ever prove to stay healthy, he could turn out to be a heck of a draft steal.
But given that he HAS had this long trail of injuries and is such a question mark as to what kind of value you can expect from him going forward, I don't think he and Jaylen are in the same contract consideration tier.
I'd also concur with SomeBody that in the games where Caris has played healthy, he has indeed generally been given the 'green light' more often compared to Jaylen, who has had to spend a lot of minutes in his career standing in the corner when playing with certain other players. Their role in the offense has been different. We don't know what Caris' usage might have been had he been playing on a different, more competitive team with bigger veteran stars.
their USG aren't that much different. Brown's 3 seasons his USG was 18.1, 21.4, 22.1 (career 20.
while LeVert's were 16.6, 22.5, 24.0 (career 21.1). Makes sense since their shots are nearly identical and they generate foul shots at virtually the same rate (the difference is LeVert is a bit more careless with the ball i.e. 0.5 more tov per 36). This notion that LeVert does whatever he wants and Brown is hamstrung really isn't borne out in the stats. Now LeVert was a 2nd or 3rd option last year, while Brown was the 3rd or 4th option, though 2 years ago Brown was clearly the 2nd option for most of the year and the #1 option after Irving went down (so a good chunk of the season and the entire playoffs), while LeVert was much lower in the pecking order (he was 6th in FGA per game for the 17-18 Nets and was 5th in mpg - i.e. not a chucker).
Health is the only reason I'd take Brown over LeVert. That is a big reason and the reason LeVert went so late in the draft to begin with, but when healthy LeVert has been the better player and looks like the player with the bigger upside. He has some real and scary health concerns though.
As Somebody noted, USG doesn't really capture the difference in the way these two players were used on the floor.
Jaylen handles the ball less (~31.5 touches per game) and 67.6% of his shots this last year were assisted. Caris averaged 47.5 touches per game and had only 34.8% of his shots assisted.
On one hand that actually paints a more favorable picture of LeVert as a ball-handler who can create. But as I said, it's not clear he'd get the same role in an offense with more ball-dominant veteran stars on it. Would he -- shades of Terry Rozier -- be used more off-the-ball?
It's notable that in 2018, after Kyrie was hurt, from that point and through the playoff games, Jaylen's touch rate was much higher -- about 42 touches per game. So his role changed in response to the presence/absence of the veteran stars ahead of him in the pecking order. Interestingly though, his assisted shot percentage was still 67%.
At any rate, we concur with the notion that if he could only stay healthy, LeVert is a fine, very talented kid.
Topic: Jaylen's impending Free Agency could resemble the OKC Harden dilemma (Read 38130 times)