The Marc stein article.
Pretty much I read that as Mavs can either lose Brunson for nothing or work with Knicks to get something in return.
The New York Knicks are gaining major momentum in their bid to sign Jalen Brunson away from the Dallas Mavericks in free agency, league sources say.Sources say that New York's ability during Thursday night's NBA Draft to offload Kemba Walker's $9.2 million salary for next season, coupled with a growing belief that it can shed further salary to expand its offer when the marketplace officially opens next Thursday, has established the Knicks as a very credible threat to bring Brunson to Gotham.
One source close to the process described that threat as “very, very, very real.”
The Knicks are increasingly expected to assemble a four-year offer to Brunson valued in the $100 million range, sources said, after the former second-round pick (No. 33 overall in 2018) played out the final season of his first NBA contract at $1.8 million in 2021-22. When the season ended, sources said, Dallas believed that a four-year offer ranging from $85-to-$88 million — similar to Fred VanVleet’s deal in Toronto — would likely secure Brunson’s signature.
Only the Mavericks, possessing Brunson’s Bird Rights as the incumbent team, have the ability to offer a five-year deal that could zoom well past $100 million. But further boosting New York's chances is a growing belief among some close to the situation that Brunson wants this move to Madison Square Garden despite his considerable rise in prominence as a Maverick and Dallas’ ability to outbid the Knicks, enticed by the opportunity to become New York's unquestioned lead guard on top of strong family ties.
Knicks president of basketball operations Leon Rose is not only Brunson's former agent but essentially regarded as a Brunson family member after breaking into the player representation business with Brunson's father, Rick, as his first client. The Knicks also recently struck a deal to hire Rick Brunson as a new assistant for coach Tom Thibodeau's staff. Father and son are extremely close, while Leon's son, CAA's Sam Rose, now operates as Brunson's day-to-day agent.
Losing Brunson without compensation would be a mammoth blow for Dallas on numerous levels, starting with its obvious lack of financial flexibility this offseason to replace the most accomplished member of Luka Dončić’s supporting cast as a team far over the salary cap. Over the past two seasons, Brunson has repeatedly illustrated that he had become the most reliable Maverick not named Dončić, despite being selected 30 picks after the All-NBA guard in the 2018 draft. Being able to land those two on the same day is second only to the acquisitions of Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash on June 24, 1998, in terms of draft-night bonanzas for a franchise that, for the bulk of the 21st century, has endured a string of draft disappointments.
It is not yet known how far beyond New York’s projected $100 million total Dallas is willing to go to try to keep Brunson, how much a potential fifth contract year could sway him or if the Knicks would have a willingness to hash out sign-and-trade terms if the 25-year-old guard plainly informs Dallas that he wants to be a Knick. New York is on course to make its anticipated lucrative offer to Brunson without needing Dallas’ help via sign-and-trade.
The Mavericks had at least two chances, before last season and in January, to sign Brunson to a four-year contract extension valued just shy of $56 million, but they balked both times. Coming into the season, Dallas resisted on extensions for both Brunson and Dorian Finney-Smith, wanting to preserve maximum flexibility in case a trade emerged that required their inclusion. Rick Brunson told ESPN in April that he went back to the Mavericks in January to give them another chance to commit to the four-year deal worth $55.6 million, but Dallas again passed.
After the Mavericks sent former All-Star forward Kristaps Porziņģis to Washington on trade-deadline day (Feb. 10), Dallas quickly struck an agreement with Finney-Smith on a similar four-year extension. Yet it was clear by then that Brunson was no longer amenable to that deal, determined to wait for free agency and armed with the knowledge that the Knicks would chase him aggressively in the summer.
Brunson scored 41 and 31 points in back-to-back games against Utah in the first round of the playoffs while Dončić was out with a calf injury to stake Dallas to a crucial 2-1 series lead in an eventual six-game dismissal of the Jazz. The series began, of course, with Knicks executives William Wesley and Allan Houston and forward Julius Randle seated prominently courtside at the American Airlines Center to watch Brunson duel with another player known as a longtime Knicks target: Donovan Mitchell.
Mitchell, though, is years away from free agency and thus available only via trade, with Utah unwilling to entertain offers for the All-Star guard. The Knicks have been planning their Brunson pursuit for months; it's been an open secret that they've been trying to shed the contracts belonging to the likes of Walker, Alec Burks and Nerlens Noel to ensure they had the needed salary-cap space to fund a competitive pitch for Brunson. As I reported earlier this week, New York is also expected to retain center Mitchell Robinson in free agency on a new multiyear deal.
In the early hours of Friday morning, after Dallas was finally able to announce the completion of its anticipated trade with Houston to acquire Christian Wood, Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison told local reporters at a press conference that team officials "don't really have a concern level" about New York's moves because they've been anticipated for so long.
"We knew they would do that," Harrison said.
Regarding the Mavericks' chances of retaining Brunson, Harrison added: "Until he tells us that he doesn't want to be here, we're optimistic."
Although Brunson has not yet voiced that to the Mavericks directly, sources say there is a growing fear within the organization that Brunson covets the new challenge and broadened responsibility with the Knicks, even if Dallas counters New York's offer with an audacious five-year deal.
Brunson played a key role in helping the Mavericks unexpectedly record a 52-win campaign and reach the conference finals in Jason Kidd’s first season as head coach, after the club had failed to win a single playoff series since its championship run in 2011. When the season ended with a Game 5 loss at Golden State in the Western Conference finals, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban expressed confidence in the ability to retain Brunson, telling me in an interview I conducted for Bally Sports Southwest: “We can pay him more than anybody. And I think he wants to stay and that’s most important.”
In the three-plus weeks since, New York has plowed ahead with its Brunson-centric plan, which led to the Knicks’ draft-night dealings with Oklahoma City, Detroit and Charlotte that realistically have to proceed now to a Brunson signing to be validated. The Knicks drafted Ousmane Dieng at No. 11 and briefly held the rights to No. 13 Jalen Duren before dealing them to the Thunder and Pistons, respectively, to shed Walker and obtain three future conditional first-round picks. The cap space resulting from shipping Walker to the Pistons is the clearest signal yet that New York believes it will win The Brunson Sweepstakes, which now loom as the most significant transactional pivot point of Rose’s two-plus years in charge of the Knicks’ front office.
6/27/2022 7:28 AM