Jaylen Brown surely knew his big payday was coming, but he admittedly didn’t expect to cash in as early as he did.
The Celtics heavily invested in Brown days before the start of the season, signing the 23-year-old to a reported four-year, $115 million contract extension. The 2019-20 campaign marks the final year of Brown’s rookie deal, and it’s safe to assume Boston would have been in serious danger of losing him this summer had he reached free agency.
Brown looked back on his contract conversations with the C’s on the latest edition of ESPN’s “The Woj Pod.” The talented swingman revealed to league insider Adrian Wojnarowski he was a bit surprised the franchised upped the ante after its initial modest offer.
“To be honest, I came with the mindset I didn’t think that anything was going to get done,” Brown said. “I wasn’t sure that anything was going to get done. The first, initial offer was four years, 80 (million). I didn’t think they were going to budge from that. So I came with the mindset, I told (agent Jason) Glushon that, ‘Let’s see what can happen, you know?’ For me, I didn’t think Jason was going to be able to get anything done. I thought they were going to stay at 80 and that was going to be it. I was hell-bent, I was already locked in, focused, ready to carry the weight that I was going to go into this year playing my fourth year out and then they jumped up and that just showed they wanted me here in the organization. They appreciated my value. They thought that I added to winning. So it was an offer that was too hard to kind of turn down.”
If Brown’s upward trajectory continues, his deal will look like a bargain. Brown currently is averaging 20 points and 6.9 rebounds per game to go along with a 49.2 percent shooting clip. While he faces stiff competition, there’s a chance Brown’s first career All-Star selection soon could be coming his way.
