Mismanaged rookie deals and ignored extension windows allowed an All-NBA talent to escape Dallas for nothing. Revisit the front-office blunders that cost the Mavericks a championship core.
DALLAS - A few years ago, I was terribly bothered by Dallas Mavs homers' lame attempts to defend the club's contractual botching of Jalen Brunson status here.
Were they blind? Were they ignorant?
But now ... the world knows. And I am here to remind anyone willing to deal with the truth what really happened ...
Times three.
Brunson continues to star in New York, recently hitting the height of heights in his hometown as the MVP of the NBA Finals.
The Mavs are getting ripped for letting him go in the summer of 2022, with critics pairing the goof with the ridiculous decision in 2025 to trade Luka Doncic to the Lakers.
Yes, the Mavs acquired - on the very same 2018 NBA Draft Day - two rookies named "Luka'' and "Jalen'' ... and have given both of them away.
It's time for me to once again chronicle the three things that went wrong in the Dallas front office's once, twice, thrice mismanagement of Jalen Brunson.
1 - What Went Wrong With His Rookie Contract: Brunson was drafted in the second round in 2018, and rather than constructing his deal in the conventional manner - adding a team option for the fourth year which would mean contractual control of Brunson as a restricted free agent in 2021 (giving Dallas the right to match any offer) - the Mavs gave him a straight four-year deal, enabling him to be an unrestricted free agent last summer.
Why? Our best answer is that led by former GM Donnie Nelson, Dallas was trying to "keep its powder dry'' (again) ... maybe because the Mavs wanted to make certain there was room to chase Giannis Antetokounmpo (or someone of that level) in 2021 free agency.
Had the Mavs simply given Brunson a conventional contract, a half-decade later, Brunson would've still been under contract in Dallas.
2 - What Went Wrong With His Extension: Later, the club had multiple opportunities to sign Brunson to a four-year, $56 million extension over the course of 2020.
They declined to do so.
In fact, my sources at the time told me Jalen was prepared to sign that deal ... but that it wasn't offered until it was (in the eyes of the Brunson family) too late.
And indeed, dad Rick Brunson later confirmed that to Marc Stein.
“I told the Mavericks, ‘Once the season is started, there’s no contract talk,’ (but) in January, I thought he did enough where he deserved [the extension]. I said, ‘Hey, take the money, man.’ He wants security. He wants to live here. And they declined (to offer the extension).
“He didn’t turn (expletive) down.''
Why did Dallas wait until after the ("too late'') Feb. 10 trade deadline? Maybe because it considered using Brunson as a trade chip. But even then, as I wondered and wrote about at the time: Wouldn't a "Brunson under contract'' be a better trade chip than "a Brunson under an expiring $1.8 million contract with unrestricted free agency looming''?
Had the Mavs simply given Brunson a conventional extension before that trade deadline, Brunson would've still been in Dallas.
3 - What Went Wrong With His Free Agency: This is the only part of the story that the Mavs defenders (whether "loyal'' or "ignorant'') almost get right. There was a point at which, after the Mavs goofed up the first time and after the Mavs goofed up a second time, when Brunson made up his mind to sign a four-year, $104 million deal with the Knicks.
But before that? The Mavs had one more shot at salvaging this - by out-bidding the Knicks in free agency in order to keep their second-best player.
"We can pay him more than anybody,” Mavs owner Cuban told Stein after the Mavs’ season ended in the Western Conference Finals. ... and that wasn't a boast; it was a fact.
And yet ... the Mavs did not offer to pay Brunson more than anybody.
The Mavs wished to give Brunson about $21 million per year.
The Knicks offered him about $26 million per year.
Guess which team lost the bidding?
And to those who say the Mavs shouldn't have bothered to up the offer because Brunson is from New York and always wanted to leave Dallas?
“I talked about it with my dad since Year 1,'' he said well after the New York move, when it might have behooved him to celebrate all things Big Apple but as instead he told the truth. "I said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to be here (in Dallas) for the rest of my career.’ That’s what I thought.”
There is a separate argument here, that Mavs management simply never thought Brunson was ever going to be this good, in Dallas and certainly not in New York. That is a debate for another day (and one that Brunson's detractors would also lose).
But this is about how Brunson "went free.''
And, no. Jalen Brunson didn't leave "because he was free.'' Jalen Brunson was allowed to be "free'' because the Dallas Mavs whiffed on preventing that "freedom.''
Three swings. Three whiffs. You're out.
