The New York Knicks couldn't have won the 2026 NBA Championship without Jalen Brunson taking a paycut. By signing his four-year contract extension a year "early," he effectively passed up on the $113 million in additional salary he could've brought in – had he waited until the next offseason.
The extra room underneath the salary cap's aprons proved crucial to his front office's ability to surround him with a good-enough supporting cast. The Knicks' status as reigning Champions affirms that. But while the sacrifice was still great, the extent of the actual paycut was always overblown.
The final year of Brunson's deal includes a player option, meaning that the guard can opt out and ink another new deal in 2028. New York saved over $12.3 million per season on the first three years of the Captain's deal, though, which add up to a gigantic total of $37 million surrendered in the name of winning. But if he opts out after the 2027-28 campaign, he'll be more than deserving of the "rebate" he gets in the form of his next Knicks contract.
Brunson's Finals MVP cements him on Knicks' Mount Rushmore
Fans themselves would tell Brunson to turn down his $43.3 million player option in the 2028 offseason. After the point guard helped lead them to heights the organization hadn't experienced in 53 years, his status among the greatest players to ever don orange and blue threads was fully cemented.
After Walt "Clyde" Frazier and Patrick Ewing, who Rick Brunson declared after the Knicks' Championship still belonged above his son on this hypothetical mountain, it's hard to argue that any all-time Knick belongs above Brunson.
The franchise has several legends that have long served as the pillars of the team's history. But that history objectively included a 53-year title drought, which Brunson just led his Knicks team firmly past.
The guard's 45-point closeout game was a complete emptying of the proverbial clip. And the entire world was watching as he set a big, fat "1A" in stone underneath his place in Knicks history.
Whether Brunson decides to take another paycut or not will be up to him, in the 2028 offseason. But after his Finals MVP win, it's safe to say that he's not actually going to be sacrificing all $113 million of those initially-reported dollars. The guard will have a chance to recuperate at least $76 million of them in a couple of years.
Maybe he'll have some more hardware to bring to the negotiating table, too.
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