Jalen Brunson’s Knicks legend grew three sizes that day...
Brunson has done New York a massive favor by agreeing to a sweetheart four-year, $156.5 million extension to stay in New York, a choice that was rumored and confirmed on Wednesday by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
If Brunson had played out his contract and become a free agent next summer he could have re-signed with the Knicks for five-years, $269.1 million — he left $112.5 million on the table. Or, look at it this way: The four-year extension Brunson signed averages $39.1 million a year, the max next year is a $53.8 million average.
Why? A couple of reasons.
First, security — Brunson doesn’t want to play anywhere else and will take the security of a deal in hand now rather than wait a year and risk injury or some other unforeseen circumstance costing him a payday.
Second, according to Fred Katz at The Athletic, Brunson understands the impact of the new CBA — particularly the second apron — on team building. He wants to compete for a title, so he’s willing to take a little less to give New York future flexibility.
Whatever the amount, Brunson is worth it. He is coming off a season in which he was fifth in MVP voting, averaging 28.7 points and 6.7 assists a game, shooting 40.1% from 3, and leading the Knicks to the No. 2 seed in the East. With Brunson and the just-added Mikal Bridges, the Knicks enter next season as a genuine threat to Boston in the East.
Brunson’s decision is incredibly generous, but don’t expect other stars to make the same choices when it’s time for them to get paid. You can be sure that, quietly, a lot of agents plus the players’ union are not too happy about this. You can also be sure that other billionaire owners are going to point to this when trying to get their millionaire stars to take less than the max in the future.
