Boston Celtics bring back benched guard on ‘great value deal for expensive future payroll’

With the Boston Celtics set to pay Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown more than half a billion dollars in the coming years once the former player signs his impending Supermax deal in the summer of 2024, the rotation needs role players on value deals to complement them as the luxury tax becomes highly draconian under the new CBA.

Enter Payton Pritchard, whose $32 million extension over four years, beginning with the 2024-25 season, was deemed by MassLive’s Brian Robb as a “great value deal for a very expensive future payroll.”

“That’s a great value deal for the Celtics for a very expensive future payroll,” Robb said in response to the news.

Payton Pritchard does about-face after requesting trade from Boston Celtics

Pritchard’s reversal from requesting a trade from the Boston Celtics to signing up for another four years was a stunning one. Pritchard told Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner on the “Point Forward” podcast that he was looking for a bigger role with the Cs; or elsewhere.

“We’ve had that discussion but — a bigger role,” Pritchard said of he and the front office (h/t MassLive). “I want to be part of a winning culture but I want to also help that, be a really big piece of that. I’m not saying it’s the best player on the team but I don’t know what my future holds unless I can take that next step. I don’t know what it is in five or 10 years but I just want to look back and know that I put my best foot forward. I put all the work in so whatever happens I can live with as long as I did it my way. That’s the most important thing for me.”

With the trades of Marcus Smart and Malcolm Brogdon during the 2023 offseason, it appears Pritchard got his wish. And with that came the long-term security of knowing both the team and the player both need each other moving forward.