The greatest paycut in sports history belongs to New York

Jalen Brunson was overpaid.

That was the consensus when the Knicks signed him in free agency on June 30, 2022, inking him to a four-year, $104 million contract. It was the first time in NBA history a non-All-Star had inked a nine-figure contract in free agency.

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The consensus was that he was given too much money. A franchise that hadn’t sniffed a conference finals appearance in 22 years was now relying on a small guard who played second fiddle to Luka Doncic to bring them back to relevancy. The things that were said about this man goes beyond parody.

Two years later, he had already proved everyone wrong in that regard. He had emerged as the face of the franchise and had restored hope to a team that had been devoid of it for so long, even if they seemed stuck at a second-round ceiling.

After the 2023-24 season ended in heartbreaking fashion, the Knicks reached a true inflection point.

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Julius Randle was due for an extension. The second apron was closing in. The team’s carefully accumulated draft assets were slowly wasting away, running out of time to cash them in.

There was also the case of Brunson’s next contract. He was eligible to extend in the 2024 offseason for four years and $156 million, but could also wait a year and ink an extension worth $269 million across five years. Playing for a team that is forever in debt to you for returning them to relevance, that extension felt guaranteed, barring major injury or some Isaiah Thomas situation.

$113 million is a lot of god damn money. We common folk can’t even fathom having a tenth of that money in the bank account. While Brunson was already set for life with his first nine-figure contract, that fact has never stopped any athlete from taking as rich a contract as humanly possible.

I wrote about the pros and cons of Brunson signing an extension that offseason, but that was always looking at things through rose-tinted glasses. There are very few people in the history of the world who would willingly sacrifice that much money for more roster flexibility.

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But Jalen Brunson was one of them.

It’s probably the largest pay cut in terms of…

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Publish date : 2026-06-14 13:00:00

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