Shams says the Celtics are taking offers on Jaylen Brown, pushing his status from rumor to active trade talk. Boston is weighing whether to move him and build a different core around Jayson Tatum.
Brown’s contract is part of the discussion. He is on a supermax deal that pays an average of $61 million over the next three seasons, which makes any deal harder to structure and raises the bar for a return the Celtics would accept.
Brown’s Market Split
Evaluations around the NBA do not line up. Some front-office personnel view Brown as a top-12 player when he is at his best, while others slot him closer to top 25-to-30 and see him as better suited to being a No. 2 option on a great team.
That split shows why Boston is listening instead of moving quickly. Brown’s value is tied to both his ceiling and the role a trading partner believes he can fill, which gives the Celtics room to compare offers against the idea of keeping him and continuing with Tatum.
Brown’s Recent Peak
The case for holding onto him is easy to make from the numbers. Brown won 2024 NBA Finals MVP, then averaged 29 points, seven rebounds and five assists this past season while making second-team All-NBA.
Some executives say his game exploded once Joe Mazzulla took over in Boston and installed an offensive scheme built on five-out spacing. That is part of the argument for keeping him with Tatum back in the mix after a fully healthy season.
Boston’s Next Move
Brown’s trade value also carries a recent playoff counterpoint. In the final three games of the Philadelphia 76ers’ first-round playoff win against the Celtics, he shot 42 percent from the field, 32 percent from 3 and turned it over nearly four times per game.
The Celtics now have to balance that stretch against a résumé that includes 2024 NBA Finals MVP and a second-team All-NBA season. If the offers do not match Boston’s price, Brown stays central to the plan; if they do, the roster around Tatum changes fast.
