NBA players shower praise on Jalen Brunson after Knicks free agency signing
The New York Knicks did what they showed up to free agency to do, and that was sign point guard Jalen Brunson. Shams Charania broke the news in the hour before free agency was set to begin, but the deal wasn’t made official until later on Thursday night.
Charania reported that Brunson intended to sign a four-year, $110 million deal with New York, but it ended up being a little less than that at four years and $104 million. The guard is coming off a $1.8 million salary in 2021-22, and now he’s going to be making around $24 million in 2022-23. That’s just a slight increase.
Brunson’s going to be the 47th highest-paid player in the league based on annual salary next season, but of course, there’s still been buzz about Brunson getting overpaid. However, there were a few NBA players who voiced their opinions on Twitter in support of the Knicks’ new point guard.
Free agent guard Jalen Brunson has agreed to a four-year, $104 million deal with the New York Knicks, his agents Aaron Mintz and Sam Rose of @CAA_Basketball tell ESPN. The deal includes a player option on the final season.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 1, 2022
Ja Morant, Mikal Bridges, and Desmond Bane show support for Knicks’ Jalen Brunson
If there’s a group of people on this Earth who know what Brunson’s value is, it’s NBA players. You know, the people that play the game of basketball at a high level for a living.
Mikal Bridges was the first to chime in:
Yall must not know how cold JB really is lol
— Mikal Bridges (@mikal_bridges) June 30, 2022
Shortly after Bridges sent out that tweet, Desmond Bane replied:
Bro got game!
— Desmond Bane (@DBane0625) June 30, 2022
And once Bane voiced his opinion, his teammate Ja Morant backed up what Bane wrote:
GAME
— Ja Morant (@JaMorant) July 1, 2022
In case you don’t realize it, Brunson’s a good point guard. Because he signed with the Knicks, people want to assume that it was a bad move, but it’d be smart if you go off of what Bridges, Bane, and Morant had to say.
People are saying that Brunson won’t be able to operate as the lead guard in New York since he played alongside star Luka Doncic in Dallas. But in the three playoff games that Doncic was out for, Brunson averaged 32 points, 5.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and shot 50.7% from the field. If it wasn’t for Brunson, the Mavericks wouldn’t have made it as far as the Western Conference Finals.
Dallas wanted to re-sign Brunson. Mark Cuban said that it was his top priority of the offseason to retain Brunson, but that was before the Knicks swooped in. So, no, it’s not as if Brunson is a ‘nobody.’ He’s far from that. And at the age of 25, the best is still yet to come.
