Jalen Brunson was quickly becoming the king of current New York sports as it was, but after giving the Knicks what will likely amount to a $37M discount on the four-year extension he signed on Friday, he might be on his way to an even bigger title: most beloved Knick ever.
That’s a behemoth of a statement, and it’s probably not true yet. Patrick Ewing still feels like the guy, with Walt Frazier and Willis Reed right there. But Brunson, after just two years in the Big Apple, is positioned to take Ewing’s throne sooner rather than later not just because of this significant bit of organizational philanthropy that is likely going to allow the young core of this team to stay together for potentially the next half-decade, but because New York has watched him evolve from the 2022 free agent that everyone thought was getting overpaid into a full-fledged superstar.
This is a fan base that had reason to believe it was going to land LeBron James in 2010. Instead, they traded the farm for Carmelo Anthony and won just seven playoff games over the next 10 seasons. This is a marquee franchise if there ever was one, and yet Kevin Durant announced to the world that it wasn’t cool to play for the Knicks as he and Kyrie Irving spurned them for their Brooklyn neighbor in 2019.
Brunson was just coming off his rookie season with Dallas at that point, and there was no indication at all that he was on a path to be anyone’s franchise player, let alone the New York Knicks’. Again, when New York got him in 2022, even as great as he’s been for Dallas, it was widely regarded as a reach to pay him $104 million. It turned out to be one of the league’s biggest bargains.
The overwhelming majority of players that had outplayed the first contract extension of their career, surely to the extent that Brunson has, would be looking to secure as much money as possible on their next deal. But Brunson has potentially sacrificed as much as $113 million for the team.
Now, that number requires some context. It’s really only $37M over the next three years based on a…
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