Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics have less than one week to come to an agreement on the wing’s rookie contract extension. So, where do they stand?
Well, like any negotiation, it’s complicated, says president of basketball operations Danny Ainge.
“We’re trying to build a championship team and there’s a lot that goes into that, and part of it is managing a payroll,” Ainge said Thursday at the Celtics annual Shamrock Foundation Tip-Off Gala, per MassLive’s John Karalis. “And for a player — I’ve been on that side of it, too. It’s basically all about you. It’s your world and you’re comparing yourself to others and it’s a complicated process in some year. Some years you know you’re not going to get a deal or have a deal. And some years a player has more leverage and other years a team has more leverage. So that’s why they’re complicated.”
“Every negotiation is different,” Ainge added, per Karalis. “Every circumstance, every year, how much money we even have. Some years we don’t even want to do it because we want to preserve salary cap space. There’s a lot of things that go into how much you offer or when you make an offer for a player. But I try to do all I can to show how much I appreciate that players and how much we love them and appreciate what they do. It’s just, timing matters.”
Ainge and the Celtics front office have made a habit of not extending rookie deals prior to their final season. The last time they did so was with Rajon Rondo in 2009, so the fact that they’re trying to come to “some result” by Monday does speak volumes about how much they value Brown.
If the two sides don’t reach an agreement by Monday, Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. ET, Brown will hit restricted free agency come next summer. That’s not to say he’ll head for greener pastures, though, as Marcus Smart was in this exact situation just last summer. Boston will have the ability to extend qualifying offers throughout his time on the market as an RFA.
But, similar to Smart, it sounds like Ainge and the Celtics would like to keep their University of California product around for the foreseeable future.
“You guys know how much we love Jaylen and we’ll just see what happens over the next few days.”
