What the Jaylen Brown contract means for the Pistons

What the Jaylen Brown contract means for the Pistons

Both teams and players have every incentive to sign these super max deals. For the team, they know they can still trade the player away for a haul if necessary, as even the worst contracts in the league can be moved, and if you have a guy like Brown, who is in the prime of his career, it won’t be a problem to trade him.

As for the player, the financial benefits are obvious even if they have no intention of staying with their current team, we know star players can request trades and essentially get to whatever team they want. So it’s smart to sign the biggest deal possible and demand a trade later if you really want to leave.

So teams are going to sign guys to these deals even if they have no intention of keeping them. It could cause teams like Boston to go for it in the short window they have before the Tatum contract kicks in, and then trade Brown while they can still get a ransom for him.

This will make having cap space at the right time crucial for teams like the Detroit Pistons, who might be able to take advantage of a team’s need to unload a super max deal. I’m not saying Detroit is going to get Brown, but think of a scenario like this:

• The Celtics come up short and don’t make the Finals next season
• They decide the Brown/Tatum pairing has hit its ceiling
• Brown goes on the trade block but there are only a handful of realistic destinations given the cost and cap space necessary to acquire him

Boom.

This might not happen with Brown, but it is certain to happen with future players as teams try to navigate building a deep roster with 70 percent of their cap space tied up in two guys.

This will make value signings even more important, developing young, cheap talent more important, and avoiding bad contracts paramount to success.