Jalen Brunson was overpaid.
That was the consensus when the Knicks signed him in free agency on June 30, 2022, inking him to a four-year, $104 million contract. It was the first time in NBA history a non-All-Star had inked a nine-figure contract in free agency.
The consensus was that he was given too much money. A franchise that hadn’t sniffed a conference finals appearance in 22 years was now relying on a small guard who played second fiddle to Luka Doncic to bring them back to relevancy. The things that were said about this man goes beyond parody.
Two years later, he had already proved everyone wrong in that regard. He had emerged as the face of the franchise and had restored hope to a team that had been devoid of it for so long, even if they seemed stuck at a second-round ceiling.
After the 2023-24 season ended in heartbreaking fashion, the Knicks reached a true inflection point.
Julius Randle was due for an extension. The second apron was closing in. The team’s carefully accumulated draft assets were slowly wasting away, running out of time to cash them in.
There was also the case of Brunson’s next contract. He was eligible to extend in the 2024 offseason for four years and $156 million, but could also wait a year and ink an extension worth $269 million across five years. Playing for a team that is forever in debt to you for returning them to relevance, that extension felt guaranteed, barring major injury or some Isaiah Thomas situation.
$113 million is a lot of god damn money. We common folk can’t even fathom having a tenth of that money in the bank account. While Brunson was already set for life with his first nine-figure contract, that fact has never stopped any athlete from taking as rich a contract as humanly possible.
I wrote about the pros and cons of Brunson signing an extension that offseason, but that was always looking at things through rose-tinted glasses. There are very few people in the history of the world who would willingly sacrifice that much money for more roster flexibility.
But Jalen Brunson was one of them.
It’s probably the largest pay cut in terms of total salary in sports history, just because of the way contracts have ballooned over the past several years. In looking for similar examples, Brunson’s old teammate, Dirk Nowitzki, took a big pay cut in 2014. LeBron, Wade, and Bosh all left a little on the table to make the Big 3 in Miami. KD left a little on the table to join the Warriors in 2016. Tom Brady would take a little less money to help the dynasty Patriots.
But all of these guys had legitimate title aspirations when they did this. Brunson was taking a pay cut for a team that, aside from a measly four weeks in January 2024, had never shown they had any real chance to compete for a championship.
As such, the same people who clowned the Knicks for signing him in the first place were now clowning the new Knicks’ captain for leaving all that money on the table. There’s no guarantee that he would even get to sign that potential $400 million extension in a few years as he entered his 30s. He might’ve done all this for nothing. Hell, it was only two months ago that the consensus was that he did this for nothing.
But now that we’re here, now that the Knicks are NBA champions for the first time in 53 years, now that Brunson has hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy and been named Finals MVP, his gamble has paid off.
It was the most ambitious decision imaginable for a player who was ascending into superstardom. The most likely outcome was that it not result in anything meaningful.
But it did. And the money he left on the table paid dividends.
Brunson made $34.94 million in 2025-26. If he waited a year and signed the mega extension, he would’ve made $46.4 million. That’s $11.5 million more for a team that has narrowly ducked the second apron in consecutive seasons.
After trading for Mikal Bridges and giving a massive contract to OG Anunoby, the pay cut had the team narrowly avoid the dreaded second apron, while also allowing them to swing a massive training camp trade. The Knicks aren’t able to trade for Karl-Anthony Towns if they passed that line, but Leon Rose bet that the seemingly overpaid All-NBA center would be a key piece of a championship contender.
Later down the line, the Knicks were able to ink Bridges to a $150 million extension without threatening to blow past the aprons and the team was even able to open up a mid-level exception in the following offseason, which they used to sign Guerschon Yabusele.
Yabusele, of course, eventually became José Alvarado, who was one of the saviors in Game 4.
The Knicks will almost certainly be a second apron team next year, something that will be totally worth it with a title in the rearview mirror, but they would be on the verge of being deconstructed if not for Brunson’s patience.
If he doesn’t take that pay cut, the two-year window of the second apron would’ve ended right now. Instead, this core will get two more cracks at it to turn a one-off title into a dynasty.
The greatest leader New York sports has ever known.
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