Call the Knicks’ leading man a married woman, because he doesn’t miss

Miranda: Hey sport. You probably heard about the financial sacrifice Jalen Brunson made last week to give the Knicks some financial flexibility through 2026. What an exciting time to be a Knicks fan! For so many years the team spake like a child, understood as a child and thought as a child. They’ve since put away childish things and risen to the rank of respected title-chaser.

It’s an exciting time, one when you’re growing into a whole new you. Your boos and cheers will change. You’ll start growing expectations in places you never had them before. You’ll notice people paying more attention to your team – even people who already have teams of their own to follow. If you thought their gaze was intense before, Brunson’s latest masterpiece only invite greater speculation.

Nearly 100 hours since the world was left stunned by someone being content with $156 million, I’m still unsettled on what to make of what happened. I’m gonna unfold all my feelings in this space without any self-judgement, and go where they lead me. Feel free to provide the judgement, Shwin.

First thought: Brunson’s historic sacrifice means the the clock’s started running on the organization justifying it. You know how in Romeo & Juliet she takes a sleeping potion that makes her seem dead for 24 hours, fakes her death and subjects all her family and friends to the pain of thinking her gone? All to run away with some dude she literally just met? Easy to grasp when this is who you’re risking it all for.

How about him?

I don’t mean to pick on Karl-Anthony Towns, not specifically. We are beautiful, no matter what they say – words won’t bring us down. Plus after hearing other viewpoints in the Strickland Discord, I realized my thumbs up re: trading for Alperen Șengün versus my thumbs down for KAT doesn’t compute. So yes, KAT could work. But he’s no slam-dunk. Given Brunson’s sacrifice is essentially an investment, like buying war bonds – and word is he may not be the only Knick willing to do so – there’s more pressure on the pay-off to deliver. No one who’s ever crescendoed from “Yes! Yes!” to “Oh God!” to “I’m almost there!” looks to end on “Meh.” If you must tease, quench, please.  “It could work” is hardly quench. 

I’ve no worries about Rose front office’s ability or likehood to pull something off. But while Brunson’s sacrifice leaves the Knicks with more flexibility, how much does that matter if belts are tightening across the Association? Any team looking to trade with New York, has to possess: 

• An upgrade over Julius Randle, one who wants to join a title chase in New York

• The legal freedom to make such a big trade under the new Spanish Inquisition CBA 

• The desire for whatever pieces the Knicks or another team can offer in a multi-team trade   

How many teams satisfy any one of those? Much less all three? I worry the CBA ends up causing a transactional Great Depression, in the volume and/or variety of player movement, and that even if the Knicks weather it better than most, a lot of other teams may have their hands tied. I worry Brunson’s trust, however well-intentioned, may not be worth $37-$113 million.

Ashwin: Your concerns over the glacial pace of transactions in the NBA isn't misplaced. The early portion of this offseason has not been a whirlwind of player movement. The opening hours of free agency, typically one of the most anticipated parts of the NBA calendar, especially to sickos like ourselves, was a dud.

The combination of the more stringent CBA measures and the subsequent belt-tightening around the league has certainly had an effect early on. That said, I think it's too early to assume the money Brunson “gave up” will have been in vain.

Brunson took the most money he possibly could right now. It's easy to say he gave up money under the assumption that max offer would have been on the table next summer, but there's no guarantee of that. Injury risk is real, especially for small guards, and can prove costly. Just ask Isaiah Thomas.

While the Knicks have yet to capitalize on the flexibility Brunson's extension gives them, that doesn't mean they won't. Not only do they have more flexibility and easier pathways to adding talent via trade, retaining their own is now much more palatable. Do you like Julius Randle? Giving him his max this offseason isn't going to bring judgment day next summer.

Excited about Mikal Bridges but worried how a new contract – more commensurate with his standing in the league – could cause a financial crunch on the Knicks’ cap sheet? It won't.

M: You mentioned the new CBA impacting the league at large. Let’s zoom-out for my next thought on all this. Some have suggested Brunson’s discount will negatively impact future players. Those slandering Brunson as a modern-day Taft-Hartley atrocity tend to be fans of other teams. Sour grapes from thirsty haters. Mos def. 

But.

Outside of maybe Aaron Judge, Brunson is the most popular athlete in the city, a city he loves that’s an astonishing place to live if you’re rich (I suppose everywhere is, but some more than others), working with a front office he’s in lockstep with. Since becoming a Knick his arrow’s pointed nowhere but up. Man’s become an iconic franchise’s icon.

Yet if, like 99.9% of players in his situation, he waited a year and signed for every last dollar he could get, no one would have blinked. It’d’ve been business as usual. C’est la vie. Short of him burning Isiah Thomas in effigy inside James Dolan’s owner’s box while wearing a Max Rose campaign button pinned to a “I Believe Kellye Croft!” T-shirt, Brunson getting $270 million in the summer of 2025 was a lock.

Inevitably, some team negotiating with some player with less leverage than Brunson will weaopnize his sacrifice as a negotiating tactic. It may not be the Knicks, but as a hypothetical: five years ago Randle signed the first of two deals widely regarded as fair at worst, team-friendly at best. Randle is eligible for an extension in a few weeks. While his popularity grew this past season, Randle isn’t universally beloved like Brunson, probably because compared to his two playoffs as a Knick the MTA is more reliable.

After OG Anunoby signed for $212.5 million, for a couple of weeks the biggest contract in franchise history, Randle was within reason writing “X > $212,500,000” on a napkin and passing it across the tiny table to Leon Rose – OG had a great couple of dozen games for the Knicks, but Randle’s earned All-NBA and All-Star honors twice in five years here. And yet after Brunson signed for $156M, isn’t it within reason for the Knicks to write “X < $156,000,000” and pass it back?

A: I think it's easy to assume Brunson was guaranteed to get that $270 million next summer, but nothing is guaranteed in this league. Certainly not health.

If Brunson ruptured his Achilles, heaven forbid, while the Knicks would certainly still offer him a hefty payday and other suitors would be willing to take a high level of risk for a player of his caliber, we don't know exactly what those numbers would be. Instead of having to worry about that, Jalen took a nine-figure payday, got peace of mind and set himself up to potentially make up the money he passed on for now if he opts out in 2028.

As far as the pressure owners exert in contract negotiations, there will always be levers they try to pull. The risk they take is other players may not feel as comfortable or trust their franchise as much as Brunson does Rose and the Knicks. Paul George could've taken less to stay home and play on a (in theory) contending Clippers team if he wanted, but he chose to go to an appealing situation in Philly made all the more enticing because they were happy to give him every cent allowed under the CBA.

Might the Knicks try to turn the screws on Randle by playing the Brunson card? Maybe, but they’re capped in what they can offer him at four years, $181.5 million. Would they try to have him shave some money off the top? Seems unlikely to be successful, given the OG contract, but there's a myriad of reasons Randle's potential extension could become a contentious negotiation aside from that.

Teams are still coming to grips with the new restrictions. It's possible with the cap tightening in a very real way that can't be overcome by owners simply being willing and able to spend small fortunes in luxury tax payments, we’ll see increased player movement in free agency, including stars – maybe not the cream-of-the-crop stars, but those that have concerns over fit, play style, durability, etc. Brandon Ingram’s stagnant extension talks in search of a max contract with the Pelicans and subsequent lack of interest on the trade market seems like something we could see become routine, now that “pay today, trade later” isn’t as easy to execute as before.

M: Let’s close with maybe the most enjoyable question Brunson’s paycut raises. Where does this rank for you among all-time Knicks moments off the court? There are still a trillion variables that will have their say on how the next half-decade goes for the Knicks. But up until now, the only time I remember any Knickerbocker turning his back on any money was 2014, when Carmelo Anthony thought Knicks fans would bow down and worship him signing a 5-year deal for $25M a year instead of the $26M per he could’ve. ¡Que mensch!

One does not simply sign a young player to a contract he immediately out-performs, then re-sign him to a second cut-rate price. I always imagined the Knicks’ someday-messiah would have some quality that made him identifiable from a distance: MJ-like athleticism, or Shaq-like strength. Not to be mawkish, but Brunson’s perspective differentiates him as much as his footwork or ferocity, two qualities that as much as any showcase what someone can accomplish through mental fortitude. If the Knicks ever win a title with him, his sacrifice will be celebrated as the biggest off-the-court moment in franchise history since hiring Pat Riley, and before that drafting Ewing. What say you?

A: Do trades count? If so, I would somewhat ironically not not entirely say the Kristaps Porziņģis trade. That cleared the decks for the franchise and gave them extra draft picks to build off of. The fact that the trade was primarily made with the purpose of giving the Knicks the space to sign Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and that Steve Mills and Scott Perry struck out without a cogent plan B besides “Don't lock up the cap space long-term” is besides the point. In fact, that and the ensuing David Fizdale-led debacle at the outset of 2019-20 paved the way for the Knicks to get to where they are today.

Out went Mills, in came Rose and a varied group of handpicked confidants to build a new front office and coaching staff. Within four seasons, and without bottoming out, Rose has built a consistent playoff roster brimming with in-prime talent, headlined by Brunson, flanked by a three-time All-Star in Randle and supported by an abundance of impact role players of all shapes and sizes.

There have been missteps and wrong turns along the way, but where past Knicks front offices never left themselves pivots or simply weren’t adroit enough to make them, Rose has consistently found a way to course-correct without missing a beat. Is it a bit of a stretch to trace all this back to a single trade from five years ago? Yes. But without question that trade stands as the rare moment in team history the Knicks unwound their cap sheet and did so by stocking their draft cupboard rather than by depleting it. Thank you, Steve Mills. Happy you're no longer with the team!