Jalen Brunson, Mark Cuban Share Sides of 2022 Contract Negotiations (2024)

Jalen Brunson broke the hearts of Dallas Mavericks fans when he decided to sign with the New York Knicks in the 2022 offseason. While he's discussed the negotiations at times in the past, he had Mavericks' minority owner Mark Cuban on his "Roommates" podcast and they each shared their sides of what happened that offseason.

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Brunson started by saying "You start seeing all these moves that the Knicks are making and, obviously, my dad going to the Knicks as an assistant coach... How could I live with myself if I didn't at least explore that option? We go into free agency and I have a meeting with the Knicks and after the Knicks was scheduled a meeting with the Mavs." He then checks with Cuban who clears up the scheduled meeting with Dallas.

"They wanted us to come to New York [for the meeting] and we were like 'What are we going to discuss? We need to have some reference on what we're going to be talking about if we come to New York.' We want to keep him but we're not just going to show up in New York just for you to say 'no.' Like I told you, there was a time where it was 'What's the number? Give us a feel' [and they responded] '[Jalen] is going to a wedding' and that was pretty much the last we heard."

"From my point of view," Brunson retorted, "once we got the number from the Knicks... I didn't hear anything else from the Mavericks. It wasn't from the Mavericks, it was my agent telling me 'They're not giving us a number.'"

"We put up a number," Cuban corrected, "they said 'Too low.' We were hoping to have a homecourt advantage, [you'd] been here four years, at least give us that opportunity. And then when it came down to it, and it looked like you were going to go to the Knicks, really the only number that's going to make it work is a maxed-out contract. And that was the last of it."

Cuban says there are no hard feelings on either side and no grudges held. While it didn't work out retaining Brunson, the Mavericks rebounded to make the NBA Finals two years later after making the Western Conference Finals with Brunson on the team.

The Mavericks initially messed this up by not offering Brunson the 4-year, $55 million max he could've received before his last season in Dallas started. He was willing to sign it before the 2021-22 season but the Mavs decided he wasn't worth it. He averaged 12.6 PPG in the 2020-21 season and there were still questions about his fit alongside Luka Doncic.

Brunson played much better in 2021-22, averaging 16.3 PPG while starting most of the games. Because he was a second-round pick, he was an unrestricted free agent following the season and chose to sign with the Knicks on a 4-year, $104 million deal instead of returning to Dallas.

Since signing with the Knicks, Brunson has blossomed into an All-NBA talent, even finishing 5th in MVP voting last year while lifting the Knicks to the 2nd seed in the East. He jumped from 16.3 PPG in his last season with Dallas to 28.7 PPG last season, the 4th-highest in the NBA.

While not signing him to the $55 million deal before the 2021-22 season looks terrible in hindsight, reports have indicated that Dallas likely would've included him in the Kyrie Irving trade. Irving was going to be a Maverick and Brunson would be playing for a team in New York City either way.

READ MORE: Shrewd Move By Mavericks Led To Heavy Criticism For Rival Team

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