How new mega-deal for Jaylen Brown puts Celtics in payroll crunch

Brown signed a five-year supermax extension with Boston for $304 million. That deal kicks in for the 2024-25 season, where Brown will get a raise from $31.6 million to $52.4M, and the Celtics will have to start making tough decisions.

With his big salary, combined with Jayson Tatum's $34.6M and Kristaps Porzingis' $30M, the Celtics will be paying $117M to three players. The new collective bargaining agreement limits the salary cap to rising 10 percent per year, so the most it can be is $149.6M. Add in the salaries of Malcolm Brogdon, Derrick White, Robert Williams and Al Horford, and Boston is at $182M, well above the luxury tax line.

The roster will only get more top-heavy from there. 2024-25 is also the last year of Tatum's deal. (He has a player option for 2025-26.) That means he's eligible for a supermax extension of his own next summer, which would begin in 2025-26, starting at an estimated $57.6M.

That means that two years from now, Boston is scheduled to pay three players — Tatum, Brown and Porzingis — roughly $144M combined. The cap that season is projected to be $164.6 million, with a luxury tax line at about $200 million. (It's usually 20 percent to 22 percent above the cap.) Add in Robert Williams' $13 million salary, and the Celtics are just $7 million under the cap with four players.

The new CBA has big penalties for going too far over the luxury tax line, so expect Boston to make some payroll-cutting moves. The C's already tried to trade Brodgon this summer before injury issues scuttled the deal. Williams has a reasonable contract, but he missed 47 games with injuries last year.

That's part of the reason Boston worked to acquire draft picks this summer. The Celtics added a top-four-protected pick belonging to the Warriors when they traded Marcus Smart to Memphis and added four future second-rounders in deals on draft night and when restricted free agent Grant Williams went to Dallas. Draft picks are cost-controlled, and second-rounders are cheap.

Williams is the kind of cap casualty the Celtics will see more of going forward. The 25-year-old was a key rotation piece, but giving him the mid-level exception was too much for the suddenly expensive Celtics. They'll need to develop more guys like Williams, the No. 22 pick from 2019 who became a playoff contributor, because they won't have the means to pay free agents.

Boston's done the most important thing in locking up its young star, with Tatum's extension next year a near-certainty. Now the C's just have to figure out how to keep a team around them in two years.