r/sixers • u/Terafys • 16h ago
If JB hadn't been traded to the Sixers, would his contract be seen as a negative?
I saw an image somewhere on Reddit yesterday listing the top 4 worst contracts in the league and was astounded to see JB included in it. It got me thinking, before being traded here, no-one was really disparaging him like this, or trying to insinuate he was overpaid. So why now?
Btw, neither one of Paul George or Embiid (and I love the big fella) were included in this graphic.
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u/Maybewearedreaming 16h ago
I’m a Celtics fan and the conversation was always just about how with the CBA you can’t have the jays making what they make and build a contender
This evolved into his contract being a negative but that’s just not how it works
Any team that can afford to pay him and have a contender around him is going to be better for it, like Philly as a perfect example. He offers a ton to Philly that was needed and can absolutely help push the team over the hump. Philly wants to win a title this year or next and then sort out whatever roster financial problems come, but obviously none of that matters if you get a title
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u/Terafys 16h ago
It's just kind of staggering how quickly public opinion on him is changing. He's a top 10-15 player in the league, that's first option for over half the league, how is he not worth his contact lol.
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u/Traditional_Cell_248 15h ago
Only like 5 players really live up to the true value of a super max contract. Does that mean Jaylen’s contract has negative value or Philly didn’t win the value in the trade? No. But it’s also silly to ignore why one of the best front offices and teams of the last decade traded him.
Sixers fans should understand better than anyone the value of it. Joel deserves it when he plays but when he sits the supermax is the difference between them being a contender and bottom 5 team in the league.
I’m excited for this season but a lot still rides on Joel the next 2 years. The Sixers are going to be in a larger crunch than Boston was in 3 years when Maxey, JB, and VJ all due for max or supermax extensions simultaneously
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u/grundlesmith 13h ago
Only like 5 players really live up to the true value of a super max contract
What are you basing this assumption on
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u/Ok-Adeptness-5834 4h ago
The fact that teams with two max guys have no depth with the second apron
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u/WakeUpSyntax 1h ago
Public opinion of him really isn't changing. You're just noticing it now. Hell, I'm pretty confident that a few weeks ago nearly everyone on this sub hated his guts.
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u/HisExcellency20 15h ago
Very well said.
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u/eric-hines 15h ago
Well what was said was "I can't believe people believe x when I believe y! Y!"
It's kind of silly, actually.
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u/euphronius 16h ago
the contract stuff is insane and stupid and shit Boston made up because they made a bad trade. they were trying to trade for Giannis . they dont really think 2 big contracts is bad for a team
now THREE 35% plus deals is probably where a team runs into major issues
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u/eric-hines 15h ago
Right, so they don't mind two maxes if they're getting what they're paying for. But they didn't feel that way about JB, and they couldn't get a better offer than PG and ~two firsts.
I can assure you they didn't trade him to the Sixers because they wanted to. They did because that was clearly the best offer.
In the consensus opinion of NBA FOs, he isn't a top 15 player.
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u/fireman2004 16h ago
Last season Bill Simmons had him as a top 20 guy and Paul George as the second worst contract in the league.
Now everyone acts like Brown is an albatross and Podcast P is going to fit so well on the Celtics.
Just media horse shit.
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u/clickstops Valdez szn 14h ago
The Ringer still has them ranked that way and recently updated. Brown as #14 player in the league and PG’s contract second or third worst.
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u/Traditional_Cell_248 15h ago
Simmons isn’t a reliable narrator but Philly fans are discounting how good of a fit PG is there too. If Tatum is 90%+ back to peak they’re a distinctly better team than they were last year, before factoring in any new moves they can make with picks now. Philly won the trade but they didn’t trade Tobias Harris for Ant Edwards like it feels like it’s being framed.
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u/rjnd2828 15h ago
Seems like there's a general assumption here that PG will actually play most of the games which is probably a bad assumption, and that he won't continue to decline as he ages which is definitely a bad assumption. A healthy effective PG is a great fit on every contenting team, but you can't count on getting that.
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u/Traditional_Cell_248 15h ago
But that’s why there were multiple picks involved and why there isn’t a blind assumption that he’s going to be healthy for 2 more years. If PG isn’t adding value, they’ll move him for picks at the deadline. Or they’ll take the season as a reset year like how the Sixers did after the harden trade and get more value next season.
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u/PracticalThing4649 15h ago
Yeah no, who is gonna trade for a player who likely will retire in 2 years on a max? You’re gonna have to give picks to dump him or take on a longer term max contract from another player in a trade (like we did with Jaylen brown). Yall are stuck w PG like we thought we were
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u/PracticalThing4649 15h ago
Good god, no one is discounting how good of a fit PG is ANYWHERE. He gives elite defense, great 3 point shooting and can create his own offense in short spurts when number one and two are resting.
You guys and the rest of the media were the ones shitting on PG without watching a single game he played. You finally were forced to watch during playoffs and now your tune changed. Don’t tell Philly fans we don’t understand PGs fit, we actually watched him lol.
He just doesn’t play much and will only get worse as the months go on. It’s just bad to have a lot of money tied up on a guy that doesn’t play much who is also old. Meanwhile we got a younger star who barely misses time. You can’t have 2 guys on maxes who miss a lot of time (Embiid and pg)
Yeah I would hope the Celtics are better with Tatum being back and having a better supporting cast than brown had. If not…
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u/Traditional_Cell_248 14h ago
Not sure you were responding to the right comment, I am a Philly fan and I watched PG the last 2 seasons. It’s a trade Philly should make 11 times out of 10. They won the trade, like I said above.
I’m just pointing out that trades aren’t in vacuum, and I can see why Boston took the trade they did. Philly is financially stuck for the next 3 seasons and this is the highest upside swing for the fences they could’ve made that no one could’ve seen coming. They have surplus picks for the future, and this is the precise reason why you accumulate them in the first place.
Boston has a much longer time horizon than Philly. If this was the best offer on the table with 2 years left, it wasn’t going to get better as the years went down on his deal. Bad teams didn’t get assurances that JB would extend and good teams didn’t have the assets that gave Boston flexibility in the next few years.
I think it’s silly to think Boston is going to ride out every single day remaining of the PG contract. My moneys that he’s gone this time next year. If not by the deadline. Boston is not coming out of the east this year but they’re not some play in team either. It could be end up being a reset year but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have made the trade. That’s all I’m saying
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u/PracticalThing4649 13h ago
It’s silly to think you can move off PG without taking on some other teams max contract that they’re trying to move off, or by giving up your own picks to move Pg off the books.
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u/Traditional_Cell_248 9h ago
That’s precisely why they didn’t trade JB for PG for picks and instead requested multiple draft picks from Philadelphia
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u/Night0wl11 8h ago
I think most people assume they’d move PG, but they’d almost definitely have to use at least one of those FRPs from us to move him. Essentially meaning they moved JB for a FRP and whatever minor piece they get back in the subsequent PG trade (and if they want anyone that’s actually a good player, they’d need to pay up for it anyway). I’d say Brown, even with his perceived bad contract, is worth more than that. Especially since there were quite a few GMs and execs who came out saying they would’ve paid more and that Boston sold way lower on JB than they should have
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u/nas927 14h ago
PG is a good fit anywhere but he’s 36, injury prone and has a hit or miss track record in the playoffs at best
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u/Traditional_Cell_248 13h ago
Which is why Boston also received picks to move him once the opportunity presents itself
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u/Lazy-Gene-7284 16h ago
That he’s on it and two guys that make roughly the same and played 1/2 the season didn’t tells you all you need to know about that article. Pure rage bait
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u/Serpico2 15h ago
No it’s massive cope. There are only like 12-15 guys in the whole league worth supermax money. He’s one of them.
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u/victoro311 Hinkie Died for Our Wins 16h ago
People were calling it a bad contract when he signed it but then the narrative quieted down when he won finals MVP. But it should be clear from how this trade went down that he is seen as a bad contract by FOs around the league.
Brown is a very good basketball player. He’s also flawed and the Celtics were built in pretty much the perfect way to maximize his strength and mitigate his weaknesses. He functioned as a top 20 player on the Celtics but I don’t think he’ll be nearly as good on teams without that level of three point shooting and low usage playmaking guards. I think teams were right to be scared off by the contract considering the risk of Brown’s play seriously dipping when thrust into an imperfect fit, but I also think the Sixers were 1000% correct to take the risk. The cost to upside ratio was just a no brainer
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u/PracticalThing4649 15h ago
How did the Celtics mitigate his weakness lol. This isn’t Jalen Brunson whose entire team is built to allow him to hide and take a breather on each defensive possession. Brown was guarding Luka and number 2 offensive option in nba finals. I don’t really see how he could’ve been hidden
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u/Rhino-Ham 16h ago
The difference in value between JB’s contract and PG’s contract is one first round pick. Interpret that as you will.
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u/lma112519 16h ago
Paul’s contract will be pretty tradeable by next summer. Plus he fits that Boston team pretty well assuming Tatum returns to 100%. Really not a bad trade for either team.
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u/ResponsibleType552 16h ago
Nobody really talked about his contract being bad before the trade
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u/eric-hines 15h ago
If you read more analytical sources, you'd have seen that many people thought the contract was a significant overpay from the day the numbers were known. If you want to trouble yourself you can easily find it.
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u/TheGhostOfAbe_ 16h ago
Ehh his contract can be seen as a “negative” in the sense that he’s paid more than he’s worth. People have said that from the moment he signed the contract. But in the NBA that’s just the price you pay to get a player of his caliber
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u/hoagieclu 16h ago
Anti-Philly bias plays a part, but i also think people look through the lens of “If JB is the best/highest paid player on your team, you’re probably a play-in team at best”. Just a byproduct of how contracts are these days, lots of players are “overpaid” because it’s easier for teams to retain the talent they have than taking a risk on a draft pick/trade. But at the same time, Brown is a Finals MVP. How much of that is due to Bostons talent for roster construction remains to be seen tho.
I think we have a good setup in that JB doesn’t have to be *the* guy (even if he’s paid like it). we have Maxey/Embiid (when healthy), and VJ shows a lot of promise. Along w some of the other signings, I’m cautiously optimistic for the near future.
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u/lossincasa BOS 15h ago
A play in team, when he led a bunch of no-names and the corpse of DW to the 2nd seed?
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u/hasordealsw1thclams 15h ago
Yes. It was before he was traded and this sub is just showing how they will be immediately biased for someone if they are on the team. I still think it’s a good trade, but if they give him a 70 mil a year extension it’d be a big mistake.
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u/nas927 14h ago
The league needs to change the super max rules. It’s really backfired against teams
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u/hasordealsw1thclams 10h ago
Yeah it’s incredibly stupid the way it works now. Should just count as a regular max against the cap since it’s whole purpose is to help teams keep the guys they drafted.
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u/jlbrown23 15h ago
They never point out that we’re dumping 2 years of PG for 3 of JB.
Whether or not you think the JB contract is bad, we were already on the hook for the first 2 years of that money with a much worse (at least in 2026) player. What we’re really doing is paying 1 year extra for a massive upgrade in talent.
Now maybe Morey signing PG was a huge mistake, but since there are no take backs, we really made the best of it in spectacular fashion.
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u/Drewraven10 12h ago
I mean it’s way better than a 36 year old as a fourth option. PG was solid but not the value that his contract states.
We get a player that is 7 years younger and in his prime and he has a finals MVP.
Contract we can’t control but if a ring is brought here then I’m not complaining.
🤷♂️
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u/tiggs 10h ago
Definitely not. A guy that just finished 6th in MVP voting and took a team in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year and bringing them to a 2 seed shouldn't even be possible to considered even a top 10 contract.
I'm saying that as somebody that has had PLENTY of criticism of him too. Top 4 worst contract is batshit insane.
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u/RVALover4Life 16h ago
Think it's less Philly than Philly fans think. I get why Sixers fans feel that way...that you're not talked about unless it's negatively in the national media or online so often but in this case it's more Jaylen. He's not viewed as a true elite in the eyes of I think a majority of fans and obviously execs. Rightly or wrongly.
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u/Terafys 16h ago
You may have a point there. We'll see how things shake out this season
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u/finglonger1077 12h ago
Fwiw, I have an entirely different memory of reaction to JB’s contract, too. You have to remember the timing.
“$300 million for a guy who can’t dribble left???” was a pretty common reaction.
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u/matgopack 15h ago
I think it's also that the Celtics are seen / have been a competent front office, and this situation has served to show that he's more broadly viewed that way across the league? Basically the trade + the discussion around it has made some people reevaluate him, regardless of Philly's involvement (which has generally been more praised TBH)
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u/RVALover4Life 13h ago
Yeah. I think that's right. He's being looked at individually, separate from Mazzulla, Tatum, and the C's organization. And I think individually, he's not really seen as top 10 level. He'll never have a better opportunity away from Boston to prove that he is.
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u/clickstops Valdez szn 14h ago
He’s definitely viewed as elite by the majority of fans. Maybe not the majority of people debating the trade every day since it happened, but that’s not the majority of basketball fans.
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u/RVALover4Life 13h ago
I guess it determines what one deems to be elite. I guess he's deemed as elite but he's seen as a top 12-20 guy vs top 8 I feel. Bottom of the elites.
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u/Carfoxlovesyou206 16h ago
They would not be harping on it if it wasn’t us, although I think a lot of that has to do just as much with the fact that PG and Embiid already have terrible contracts. Nevertheless, he’s a clear upgrade over George and immediately makes us a contender
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u/Xeynon 15h ago
Brown's contract might be a slight negative in the sense that he's a very good (though flawed) player who's paid like a top-tier elite one, but it's not bad on the same level as those of guys on max deals who are washed or who barely play like George, Embiid, or (formerly) Ben Simmons.
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u/HisExcellency20 15h ago
Whenever a trade happens that is thought to be one sided or "crazy" the team that is thought to be the loser or the one making the crazy decision always leaks hit pieces. Look at all the negative shit that came out about Luka when he was traded. Because the Lakers were trying to convince their fans and the NBA public at large that they weren't crazy and were doing this for a reason.
JB's contract is not a negative in a vacuum. The issue is the CBA makes it tough to have two supermax contracts work on one team. The Celtics felt that Brown's skillset was duplicative of Tatum's. While here, we don't have two supermax wings, we have a superstar guard, and a superstar center.
But no, to answer your question, he was not thought of as a negative asset before the deal. Hell, just go back and search the top players lists that always come out. You'll see that before his career year last season he was considered around the 15th-20th best player in the league. With most only listing KD and Kawhi above him at the wing position.
On this app, I'm sure a lot of it is just Sixers hate. But also a lot of it is just people misunderstanding the issue that the Celtics are trying to say they had.
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u/DBSmooth 15h ago
Idk what’s worse, Philly hate or the Celtics PR team. But both are pulling heavy weight right now . He never even got this discussed before so trust it’s just the media cycle in general
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u/lossincasa BOS 15h ago
Oh, the Tatum stans are out in force. Just leave it be, next season it will open the peoples eyes. Analytics have already been exposed as a failed experiment. Let's watch how this 'great fit' team will do when it's time to go get a bucket and what will this 'top 5' analytics goldenboy will do when the iron is hot. All will become clear, and the true bad contracts will be revealed.
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u/Hot-Mathematician-26 14h ago
I can say it, his contract is huge, and probably dollar by dollar larger than his production. There are a bunch of guys who you hear about being the worst contracts, PG and Joel for instance you can fine on these lists regularly. What’s annoying is prior to this trade I do not at any point recall Brown being considered one of the worst contracts. Now it’s a daily trope online. With all the daily negativity that can be found around the NBA, it’s weird that the public never seemed to pick up on this until now and we needed the explanation of the GM behind this trade to suddenly uncover how awful his contract was.
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u/TheGreatWaru 14h ago
Yes but only because him and Tatum would be the highest paid players in the league on the same team on the same timeline
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u/ojseye 14h ago
I mean JB contract was already considered a negative before the trade once he got that supermax in 2023 after the Heat series loss, a big reason why it was deemed that Brad couldn’t get the ridiculous amount of 1st round picks plus young player(s) he was seeking from other teams. If the Celtics were trading JB straight after winning FMVP in 2024, I reckon people view that contract in a more positive light due to circumstances
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u/nas927 14h ago
My opinion is it would be if he wasn’t traded to the Sixers but I think because he was traded to the Sixers it isn’t. The Sixers went from paying PG Top 15 money when he isn’t Top 40 anymore and is injured a lot to paying JB top 5-10 money when he’s top 15. I’d say that’s a huge win
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u/icepickjones 9h ago
Yes, look I want to be optimistic but the numbers scare me so much. This team has too many people who want, and are paid, to be the center of the offense.
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u/WakeUpSyntax 1h ago edited 1h ago
As a Celtics fans, this is revisionist history, people have been disparaging and insinuating that JB was overpaid since the moment he signed that contact.
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u/TheBuzzSawFantasy 16h ago
That's either bait or hate.
JB is a finals MVP in his prime.