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Jalen Brunson, formerly of the Dallas Mavericks, signed with the New York Knicks for $104 million on June 30, the first-day free agency opened. Even at this point, it was a foregone conclusion that he was going there. Numerous reports earlier indicated that he was signing with the Knickerbockers.
Things were quite odd during Brunson’s first news conference with the Knicks to introduce him. In typical James Dolan fashion, almost all media was not allowed, but only the ones that worked for the team. It opened up speculation that the Knicks were trying to avoid any questions that they may have somehow illegally recruited Brunson before the team was allowed to.
Back on June 2, the Knicks hired Rick Brunson, Jalen’s father, as an assistant coach. Speculation could point to this instance as dialogue already illegally taking place in formulating a plan to get the former Mavericks guard to the Big Apple. Another instance occurred in April, during the Mavs Game 1 against the Jazz, Knicks Executive Vice President William Wesley was spotted sitting court-side for the game.
Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reported that the NBA officially launched an investigation on August 1 into speculation that the Knicks had tampered with the process of acquiring Brunson.
There are simply too many signs that point to the Knicks violating the Collective Bargaining Agreement rules. It would be shocking if the Knicks got away scot-free, especially considering the bad luck they always seem to be involved in.
NBA Has Given Tampering Fines in the Past
Not surprisingly, this is not the first rodeo for the NBA in looking into teams to see if they tampered with players before the free agent moratorium period started.
Just last summer, Chicago lost a second-round pick after the NBA discovered they had tampered with the signing of their point guard Lonzo Ball. The same happened to Miami with Kyle Lowry, as they also lost a second-round pick.
In 2020, Milwaukee negotiated in bad faith for a failed sign and trade deal for Bogdan Bogdanovic with Sacramento. They also surrendered a second-round pick.
Looking at the trend of offenders over the past couple of summers, it does not look like teams have stopped trying to recruit players before the legal period. With technology nowadays, it is pretty easy for anyone to communicate discreetly, as Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannis mentioned in 2019.
Mavericks Had Chance to Keep Brunson
All of this could have been avoided had the Mavericks simply offered an extension that was much cheaper than the max deal Brunson got with the Knicks.
ESPN’s Tim MacMahon reported that the Mavericks refused to offer Brunson a four-year extension worth $55.5 million before last season.
Instead, Dallas offered the extension right after the February 10 trade deadline and by that point, Brunson and his representatives were not interested in talking about the future.
“I told him once the season is started, that’s it,” Rick Brunson says. “I told the Mavericks, ‘Once the season is started, there’s no contract talk,’ and I went back against my word. In January, I thought he did enough where he deserved [the extension]. I said, ‘Hey, take the money, man.’ He wants security. He wants to live here. And they declined.
“He didn’t turn s— down. Y’all declined first. When y’all came back to him, we said, ‘Hey, we just want to finish out the season and go from there.’”
Dallas must be kicking themselves for making that mistake. But, the team moves quickly and traded for Christian Wood and has already started dialogue towards an extension.
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