Jalen Brunson was already a celebrity in this city. There was no restaurant in Manhattan that wouldn’t buy him dinner the minute he walked in. There was no bar in the five boroughs where you had to take out your wallet to order a beer. If the bartender didn’t pay the bill, the customers would line up and pay it.
That was right there when he was the best basketball player the Knicks have employed since Patrick Ewing. And all of that was just the beginning, until just before 5 p.m. Friday.
Now we’re talking on a different level. Now we’re having a different conversation. Look, there’s no way he’s got a good conscience after he agreed to a contract extension that will pay him $156.5 million. We’re not going to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Jalen Brunson’s great-grandchildren are going to be taken care of even if he never makes another nickel after this deal.
still …
It’s 2024. Now is the time to wait for you to get yours, for me to get mine, and for me to get a little more of mine. Ultra-rich athletes look at what other athletes in every sport make. That’s why AAV is as common an acronym in sports these days as RBI, PPG, and QBR. It’s why athletes who are already wealthy thanks to their agents quit their agents and sign with Scott Boras, who (usually) makes them even more fabulously wealthy.
Yes, there were exceptions: Business Insider estimates that the reason Tom Brady has parted ways with between $60 million and $100 million over the years is for the same reason Brunson is parting ways with $113 million now: to help the Patriots (and Knicks) squeeze as much talent out of them as possible within the NFL (and NBA) salary cap.
If Brady ever wonders if it was worth it, he need only open his safe deposit box and empty his seven Super Bowl rings. Brunson hopes his generosity is similarly rewarded. New York City and Knicks fans are likely to sign him for one-seventh of Brady’s total at this point.
LeBron James has accepted pay cuts here and there over the years to give his team more flexibility. Patrick Mahomes restructured his huge contract with the Chiefs to keep them a destination for talent. When Reggie Jackson got to the Yankees, he did so for $2.9 million, $2.1 million less than the Expos guaranteed him and about $1.6 million less than the Padres offered him.
Reggie bet on himself, he bet on the Yankees, he bet on New York, just like Branson bet on the Knicks. Even with inflation, $2.1 million in 1976 is not going to become $113 million in 2024 (it will be about $13 million, according to records).
decision. Charles Wenzelberg
And here’s the thing: if Branson hadn’t agreed to this, you Really Have you ever let that work against him? Yankees fans still adore Aaron Judge, but the only reason he’s with the Yankees is because Hal Steinbrenner agreed to match the Giants’ $360 million offer. No need to begrudge Judge. In fact, there were times this year when I felt he was underpaid.
So forget about Branson being willing to part with $113 million (or at least wait to get it back) and how unlikely that would be. Here’s the real point:
1. He wants to be here. He wants to win titles with the Knicks. He wants the Canyon of Heroes and he wants the Knicks to get the most out of it.
2. He’s a leader not just because he scores the most points, or is the one who shoots the technical free throws, or is the one who patiently answers all the questions after the game without running out the side door of the bus.
Teammates notice this, and naturally, Josh Hart took about 15 seconds to write “Let’s get a statue made for him” over X, adding a tearful emoji.
That statue? If the Knicks win a third championship under Brunson, it will be a given, in large part because of what he did on the court to make it possible. Still, what he did on Friday afternoon carried a message for the team and anyone else around the league who might be the last remaining piece of the puzzle to make it to Canyon:
Some say they’ll do anything to win.
Some people actually do that. In this case, 113 million of them.
