Yes. This is what happened. He wanted to lock in the money in case of injury. Looks even better now because he will be making a ton in endorsements for the rest of his life in NYC in addition to the crazy contract he will inevitably sign.

You’re correct. This post is talking only about the difference in overlapping years for some reason, but the difference in full contract worth of each of the extensions is $113 million.

Isn’t it also to line up his next extension to be eligible for a 10-year veteran max, instead of the 8-year veteran supermax?

and now he can also become a free agent at age 31 instead of a free agent at age 33.

It is MUCH easier (especially for a short guard) to get a max/supermax contract at age 31 (when you still probably have 2 great years left) than at age 33 (which is when nba players usually start to fall off).

 

The say I see it is:
-Get paid 1 year early.
-Become a FA after 3yrs.
-Become a FA at age 31, which qualifies you for a much larger extension

Instead of
-Wait 1 year to get paid.
-Get more money at first but become FA at age 33.
-Become a FA at age 33, which qualifies you for a larger extension BUT you’re “old” now by NBA standards and teams don’t want to give mega contracts at that age.

 

It would have shaken down like this PROBABLY MAYBE:

Scenario 1: <–He took this option
\(157m + mega contract at age 31. Eligible for \)323 million = $480m total

 

Scenario 2: <–This is the one he left behind
\(269m + whatever contract he could get at age 33 (min-midlevel deals)= \)300m or less.

 

Scenario 3: \(157m + waits for FA at 32yrs to get 5/\)418 deal = $575 million

It’ll have to be redone after his next contract anyways. He’ll get more money earlier at that point.

He signed a year earlier and got a four year deal with a player option so he could opt out after three. If he had waited, he could have signed a five year deal with no option.

So if you’re comparing apples to apples, you would compare the first three years of both as Brunson will opt out and sign a bigger deal after. You could argue that there is some ripple effect to contracts even further down the line but that’s not something anyone can state with any sort of certainty now as he’ll be past his prime then.

Yes but the way he did it now he becomes a free agent the first year he’s eligible for 35% of the of the cap. And he’ll be a free agent 2 years younger than he would have been, which makes his ability to get another supermax way more likely. So he’ll probably end up doing way better with this career trajectory than he would have if he waited a year and then he would have had to wait a whole two extra years before his crack at getting 35% of the cap.

This was done entirely in a self-interested way. I mean he didn’t do anything wrong it’s just people acting like he made a selfless decision or I think missing the dynamics. If he really believes he’s going to be a max player for the next four or five years, it was a far more lucrative decision to make to cash in now so you can hit the market again earlier.

37m vs 113m is a wild difference tho

yep. he signed a year early to lock in the money. and his contract ends, i believe, when he hits the 10 year vet max. so it was really a win-win for everyone.

he probably saw what happened with IT in boston when he got injured and lost a shit ton of money. he’s always seemed to be a guy who wants to lock money in now vs gamble. he was willing to take that low extension from the Mavs multiple times.

This whole discussion is moot. He’s being paid under the table.

It’s the 2029 offseason he’ll be eligible for that. In 2028, he’s eligible for around 320M which is what I assume is the contract he will actually sign since there is no way he is getting a 5yr/460M extension as a 32 yr old.

Thank you Brock Aller for being the cap god

Yeah, I think plenty of smaller guards remember what happened with Isaiah Thomas. The team building thing is a nice story, and likely partially true, but a bad injury prior to signing was entirely possible. Signing for less early gives him peace of mind in the immediate term, while setting him up well for a (well deserved) massive deal next time around.

He didn’t actually give up anything. Do the math on what the 5 years would be had waited a year (see how that worked out for another small guard named Isaiah Thomas) vs the 5 year total payout once he opts out and signs his extension and the money is basically identical.  

Waits a risky year and then signs a 5 year deal:

2025-26 - 46.4m
2026-27 - 50.1m
2027-28 - 53.8m
2028-29 - 57.5m
2029-30 - 61.2m

vs, locks in the guaranteed max money and opts out after 3 years to sign a 10 year super max:

2025-26 - 34.9m
2026-27 - 37.7m
2027-28 - 40.5m (OPTS OUT AND SIGNS NEW MAX)
2028-29 - 74.8m
2029-30 - 80.8M

These 2028-30 numbers can change depending on how the cap rises, but at the moment it’s looking like 269 mil either way. He likely will actually come out ahead.

It was a no brainer decision. He had a good year, but no doubt his agent was telling him to take the max while it was on the table just in case. Look what happened to Isaiah Thomas who had a 2nd team all nba selections and lead his team to the ECF. He was expecting a team to back up a brinks truck but his next season was a disaster, injuries derailed his career and the money never came. 

We can look at this in hindsight and say “yeah but Brunson is a perpetual all-nba guy not a fluke like Thomas”, but that was not the narrative at the time. He was 26 and had just had a remarkable all-star season after being a role player in Dallas. It wasn’t thought a guarantee he’d continue. He was roughly the same age as Isaiah when he had that break-out season after being a role player on the Kings.

Brunson didn’t give up shit. It had nothing to do with helping the Knicks. It had everything to do with him locking in the max available to him rather than head into a season where he could have disappointed and never got the hypothetical max. It’s a bullshit narrative all around. 

Plus it’s always crap when people compare contracts of different lengths by totals rather than per year amounts.

He left 113M by deciding to sign earlier than he should have. It was 113M

but it assumes that he doesn’t suffer a career-ending injury, fall off a cliff skill-wise, etc. If he never is able to sign another contract ever again, he DID leave $113M on the table

The fear of injury is why he took the Early Bird contract in the first place. If he had waited a year and suffered a major injury before extension time, he’d have lost the 156 million too

What’s the disagreement?

I think he has a cushy front office job at MSG for life. 

Also he could sign an endorsement deal with any NYC based company for a shit ton of money.  

“Hey this is Jalen Brunson with Major World Auto…”

yes, let’s say he started half the season playing like shit and then tore his achillies or something. the GM would be stupid to offer him the max, they’d probably offer him something way less than what his extension ended up being

Could be but we’ll never know because he won a ring

Not unless he exercises it, which he almost certainly won’t.

The article was written in July 2024 soon after the extension was announced

sure, I can agree with that – I’m just taking issue with the false “over 100M sacrifice” narrative

Didn’t LeBron sign for less than max to form the Heatles? 

Lebron literally left money on the table during his prime to allow the Heat to sign more players