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2. Jalen Brunson: 5yrs, $104M (New York Knicks)
The New York Knicks and Jalen Brunson have been linked to one another for a couple of years, and on Thursday evening, the marriage became official. Knicks general manager and Brunson’s former agent, Leon Rose, inked the 25-year-old guard to a four-year, $104 million contract with a player option on the final season. Granted, there’s a lot of history between the Rose and Brunson families, but that has nothing to do with business, and this is an inexplicable overpay.
Ready to start a new chapter New York! Let’s go! 🗽🔹🔸
— Jalen Brunson (@jalenbrunson1) July 2, 2022
Like Simons, Brunson is a good player and may very well be a good fit for the Knicks. Brunson is phenomenal in the pick-and-roll, a staple of any Thibodeau-coached team, and a 37.3 percent 3-point shooter for his career. He’s coming off the best statistical season of his NBA career and an impressive playoff run which increased his price tag this offseason.
Also akin to Simons, Brunson is an undersized guard and a liability on defense. He gives a ton of effort, but standing at 6’1″ and weighing 190 pounds, there’s but so much you can expect of him. That doesn’t bode well for Thibodeau, who expects his Knicks team to “take pride” in their defense. As we’ve seen many times over his coaching career, Thibs doesn’t care who you are; he expects you to play defense.
Not only is he undersized, but he’s always been a score-first guard, and the Knicks need someone to initiate the offense and create for others. He’s shown he can play without the ball playing alongside Luka, but Brunson isn’t as effective if he isn’t running the show.
There’s only one ball, but RJ Barrett, Julius Randle, and Evan Fournier are all at their best with the ball in their hands as well, so what will that mean for the offense moving forward?
More importantly, Brunson isn’t the caliber player that changes the trajectory of this franchise. He isn’t a top-50 player in the league; he’s not even top-15 at his position. Brunson is not a player you commit north of $25 million per year to, especially not at this stage of the rebuild. He’s not a starting-caliber point guard, yet he’s about to be among the highest-paid point guards in the NBA.
Brunson meant a lot more to the Mavericks and what they were able to accomplish, and they weren’t even willing to commit to this type of AAV to retain him. Not only are the Knicks overpaying Brunson, but they also moved multiple assets just to create the necessary cap space to sign Brunson to this massive deal. Making a multitude of moves to get to this point just to still be a fringe play-in team is going to sting for Rose and Co.
This is the second consecutive season in which the front office has committed an astonishing contract to a middling role player, thinking they are outsmarting everyone else.
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