The question isn’t whether you or I think he’s a max player, it’s whether he’s an asset (even mildly so) on that contract. The recent history of highly-paid young wing tradeability (Barnes, Porter) suggests that he would be an asset, even without improvement, on a max deal.
Isn't it a stretch to call Harrison Barnes Mavs max contract an asset? I thought Bob Myers/GSW not matching turned out to be the right move for them. Barnes underperformed during the deal, the Mavs were bad throughout and he finally got dealt in the last year of it for an expiring Zach Randolph/end of the bench fodder.
Otto Porter was OK for the few years on his deal but got dealt for Portis/Parker, both bench players.
I'm not comparing them to Brown, just question if their contract/deals qualify as assets or their performance helped their teams win.
Hopefully, Jaylen improves, has a big year and he gets a max. BUT, if he doesn't improve from last season, he isn't NOR his contract's asset value worth max money IMO.
ALSO, I'd also be careful handing out MAX dollar contracts since one of the huge revenue sources and biggest growth engine for the NBA, CHINA, is cutting some sponsorships. Most NBA execs have only lived in a world where revenue/salary cap increases every year, those long/MAX deals get quite onerous if the salary cap shrinks. Future Max deals (potentially Brown's) are not comparable to past MAX deals (Barnes/Porter) with a shrinking or flat cap. It sucks but the "China situation" has to part of the equation.