Jalen Brunson: I wanted to stay in Dallas, but Mavericks were ‘crickets’ in 2022 free agency
Despite being the respective second-fiddle to Luka Doncic in the 2022 postseason, former Dallas Mavericks and current New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson put together quite a show amid Doncic’s brief absence.
Doncic missed the first three games due to a calf injury suffered in the regular season finale. In those three games, Brunson averaged 32.0 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists, including a 41-point, eight-rebound, five-assist, two-steal performance on 15-of-25 shooting and 6-of-10 from 3-point range in the Mavericks’ six-point Game 2 win over the Utah Jazz on April 18, 2022.
He averaged 19.5 points on 45.4/32.878.6 shooting splits–in addition to 4.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists–the rest of the postseason, but Brunson entered free agency looking to return to the Mavericks … which appeared to be one-sided, Brunson disclosed this week.
“I wanted to stay [in Dallas]. I thought I would be there for a long time, and I liked my role there,” Brunson told Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes on their podcast “All The Smoke” this week.
“It’s funny because my agent was like, ‘You can do so much, you can get more, you can get more,'” Brunson added. “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].
“I remember seeing something on Twitter after [our final game of the season], and it was like Mark saying, ‘Hey, we can pay [Brunson] the most money.’ He says that in the interview literally right after the game … after that, it was crickets [from the Mavericks’ perspective].”
In an interview with ESPN Mavericks beat writer Tim MacMahon from April of 2023, then-team owner Mark Cuban held a different perspective:
“We wanted to re-sign him and we wanted to keep the season going together. We thought, because JB kept on telling us he liked being here,” he said. “JB never gave us an indication. It was only the parents that were the issue. Even the agent said, worst case, we can do a sign-and-trade.
“I mean, there was no negotiation. They didn’t give us a number. I mean, you would think that when you’re the incumbent team and you can match anything, that’s the way it works. Right? You have a relationship with the agent and they want to at least give you a chance because you helped develop the player. You had him for four years. OK, let’s work together.”
Jalen Brunson went on to sign a four-year, $104 million deal with the Knicks, even though the Mavericks owned his bird rights–thus, meaning, Dallas could’ve signed him to any amount up to the max whether they were over the cap or not.
He quickly developed into an All-NBA caliber guard and a franchise cornerstone for New York, where his dad was hired as the assistant coach not long before he signed (they were found guilty of tampering due to this, which netted an inconsequential punishment).
Brunson, 27, finished just outside the top-10 in MVP consideration in his first season in New York. He averaged 24.0 points and 6.2 assists last year and followed by 27.6 points and 6.5 assists this season, earning his first career All-Star bid.
Safe to say, in the end, Brunson made the right decision–financially and given his new-found stardom in the biggest media market nationwide!
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