Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum in line for massive contract. What do we know?

The Celtics etched their name into the record books on Monday night by claiming their 18th championship and thereby becoming the franchise with the most titles in NBA history. It would be fair to say that a critical part of the reason why that’s the case, was down to the performance of Jayson Tatum.

Jayson Tatum is in line for a massive contract

Though Boston is still in party mode following their NBA Finals win on Monday night, it hasn’t stopped the focus from quickly switching to the future of the team, more specifically the contract of Celtics star Jayson Tatum. According to reports, the 26-year-old is about to be offered a massive $315 million supermax extension now that the negotiating window is open. To be clear, Tatum just came to the end of the third year of a five-year, $163 million contract and has a player option in the final year.

It was ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski who first reported on the possibility of the deal ahead of Game 5 on Monday.”Once these NBA Finals are over, teams are now allowed to start negotiating contract extensions, negotiating with their own free agents,” Wojnarowski said. “Which means that the Celtics will soon present Jayson Tatum with the largest contract in NBA history, a five-year, $315 million extension.” Then, on Tuesday, further reports indicated that the Celtics were set to announce the deal following the team’s victory parade on Friday.

“The Celtics and Jayson Tatum will start beginning talks on that five-year, $315 million deal, that’ll happen after everyone’s sobered up,” the Athletic’s Shams Charania said during an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show. “The whole team is in Miami right now, they’re having a great time, and then the parade is going to be Friday. I would expect, at some point after that, Jayson Tatum and his agent and the Celtics get down to brass tacks.” Appearing alongside Charania was ESPN’s Brian Windhorst who stated that Tatum will sign the deal “in the next week or two.”

If you didn’t know, the reason Tatum is eligible for the Supermax extension is down to the fact that he was named to an All-NBA team this past season. Now, while it’s clearly a massive amount of money, one has to consider that this is a player who was named to the first team alongside the likes of Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander i.e., he’s worth it. That said, those are details. Reports indicate that this is not a question of ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ with the Celtics making it clear that they have no intention of giving Tatum what he’s worth, something that he intends to get.