Open Thread: Jalen Brunson went all-in on himself
The results leading to the New York Knicks being up 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals
During the Knicks game the other night my wife asked, “Where did Jalen Brunson come from?”
I had thought Brunson went to the New York Knicks in a trade in which the Knicks ended up getting the better deal. When I went to see who he was traded for, I was amazed to see that he was actually not traded, the Dallas Mavericks just didn’t want to pay him.
In researching, I found an interview he did with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson for their All The Smoke podcast:
“I wanted to stay there, I thought I would be there for a long time, and I liked my role there. It’s funny because my agent was like, ‘You can do so much, you can get more, you can get more.’ I’m saying, ‘Well, I want to be safe. I’m not trying to gamble right now. This is not something you really gamble with if it’s out there.’ But [the Mavericks] were like, ‘We want to see where we’re at by like 20, 25 games into the season.’ We were like, ‘All right, well, if you’re not going to do it, I kind of don’t want to do it until after the season. I’m not trying to think about this [during the season]. So there was a period where Luka [Doncic] went out and I started to start. I was playing really well, I think I was averaging like 20 and like six, maybe, whatever. It was about that 20-, 25-[game] mark. And so we went back, we’re like, ‘Hey, if the deal is there, we’re thinking about it.’ Like, ‘I’ll do it, like right now.’ Still, it was no. It wasn’t a hard no — it was just like, ‘We want to see, we want to see.’”
Twice the Mavericks failed to offer him an extension. When the trade deadline arrived, Brunson was surprised to see he still had a locker in Dallas. In fact, they finally put a four-year, $55 million offer to the guard. But it was too late.
“I was like, ‘No, I think I’ve outgrown that now”
Brunson passed on the offer, bet on himself, and took a 4-year, $104 million contract with the New York Knicks, which now looks like a bargain.
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