Rick Brunson says the Mavericks had already lost control of the Jalen Brunson contract conversation long before his son left Dallas. In 2025, he described the team’s effort to bring Jalen back during the 2021-22 season as a 30-second exchange that ended with disbelief on his side and, soon after, a far bigger deal in New York.
The reason the moment is resurfacing now is simple: Brunson has become the kind of player Dallas hoped to keep, and the Knicks’ run to the NBA Finals has only sharpened the contrast with what the Mavericks let slip away. Jalen Brunson signed a four-year, $104 million deal with New York in the summer of 2022 after Dallas reportedly viewed $55.5 million over four years as its best possible offer.
Marc Stein reported on the ALL NBA Podcast that Brunson’s representatives laughed when the Mavericks signaled they would be willing to sign him for that four-year, $55.5 million figure. Rick Brunson backed up the tone of the talks with his own account, saying, “That was a 30-second conversation,” and adding, “I wasn’t on the phone, but how I got the message was, ‘You guys wouldn’t be interested in that deal now, would you?’ That’s how it was said to me. I just laughed.”
That version of events fits with the broader picture around Dallas’ handling of the negotiations. Tim MacMahon reported in April 2022 that the Mavericks did not offer that deal then and did not engage in negotiations with Brunson’s camp, leaving a gap between what Dallas appeared willing to consider and what Brunson eventually commanded on the open market. By the time he reached free agency, the gap had widened into a contract worth nearly twice as much.
The misread also exposed a basketball problem Dallas may have been trying to avoid. A backcourt built around Brunson and Luka Dončić could have been difficult to manage over time, because both are at their best when the offense runs through them. Stein suggested the only realistic way to keep Brunson might have been to make a blow-away offer above his market value, and Dallas never came close to that kind of commitment.
What is left now is not whether Brunson was valued in New York. It is whether Dallas ever truly decided he was worth building around, or whether the franchise let the choice drift until a player it could have kept for $55.5 million was gone for $104 million and, years later, still defining the mistake every time the Knicks win.
