A new record has been set in the NBA, but it’s not an on-court statistic.
Jaylen Brown, the shooting guard for the Boston Celtics, has agreed to a 5-year contract worth $304 million, his agent told ESPN.
The richest deal in league history keeps the 26-year-old two-time All Star under contract through the 2028-2029 season.
Brown’s new deal beats the previous record contract of two-time league MVP and 2023 NBA champion Nikola Jokic’s 5-year, $264 million agreement with the Denver Nuggets.
The the former University of California-Berkeley standout averaged a career-high 26.6 points per game on 49% shooting last season for the Celtics.
Brown is considered one of the cornerstones of Boston’s championship contending team alongside Jayson Tatum, who himself is eligible for a supermax extension next season.
According to ESPN, Brown is scheduled to make $52.3 million when his new contract kicks in during the 2024-2025 season. That figure is set to rise to $69.1 million by the 2028-2029 season.
Tatum and Brown both scored 30 or more points in the same game 10 times last season, a feat only accomplished by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal in the last three decades, according to research from ESPN Stats & Information.
“It’s been in Ohio as early as the mid-1850s at least, brought in as an ornamental plant because of its unique foliage and white flowers,” Gardner said. “It was actually planted in people’s landscaping, and it has been spreading.”
Off the court, the Atlanta native donates his time to mentoring children as well as philanthropy in Boston and around the globe. He also serves as one of the vice presidents of the NBA Players Association and is a fashion aficionado, recently appearing at Paris fashion week and speaking at Variety’s Sports and Entertainment Summit.
It’s not just American athletes that are seeing mind-boggling contracts being offered to them; Paris Saint-Germain superstar forward Kylian Mbappé was reportedly offered a salary package of 700 million euros ($773,598,000 USD) over just one year by Saudi Arabian soccer club Al-Hilal.
Al-Hilal offered PSG a world-record $332 million for the French World Cup winner, and if the deal were to go through, it would be the most expensive transfer in soccer history.