Jalen Brunson left $113 million on the table two summers ago. On Saturday night, with the Larry O'Brien Trophy finally back in New York for the first time since 1973, he was asked whether the sacrifice was worth it.
"100 percent worth it. 100 percent worth it," Brunson said. "Even if we didn't achieve this, I feel like being able to do that and grind and go on a journey to try to achieve it would've been worth it as well, but this is definitely the cherry on top."
Brunson scored 45 points in the Knicks' 94-90 Game 5 win over the San Antonio Spurs, a single-game Knicks Finals scoring record, to close out the series 4-1 and earn the Bill Russell Trophy as Finals MVP. It capped one of the most consequential financial decisions in recent NBA history.
The math behind the title
When Brunson arrived in New York in July 2022, he signed a four-year, $104 million deal that plenty of pundits panned as an overpay for a guard who had yet to make an All-Star team. He answered them by making the All-Star team in 2024 and earning All-NBA Second Team honors. That is precisely when he could have cashed in.
Instead, in the summer of 2024, Brunson agreed to a four-year, $156.6 million extension — far less than the roughly $269 million he would have been eligible for had he waited one more year to negotiate as a free agent. The difference, $113 million, gave the front office the cap flexibility to build a roster around him.
That decision kept the Knicks under the second apron of the salary cap, a threshold that under the 2023 collective bargaining agreement carries severe penalties: teams can't aggregate salaries in trades, lose the mid-level exception, and risk having future first-round picks frozen. Staying beneath it is what allowed New York to re-sign OG Anunoby, trade for Brunson's former Villanova teammate Mikal Bridges, and complete the training-camp blockbuster for Karl-Anthony Towns — moves the team admits it could not have made otherwise.
What his teammates and coach said
Towns, the centerpiece of the deal Brunson's pay cut made possible, did not forget who opened the door.
"For him to welcome both of us here into this organisation and trust that we were here for him, it means a lot," Towns said. "A person like that who has been handed the keys to the city and was willing to have the door open for both of us to join."
Head coach Mike Brown, who took over the Knicks bench last offseason, was blunt about how rare the gesture was.
"He probably takes a pay cut that I wouldn't have taken," Brown said. "Every time they would've thrown that number in front of me, I would have said no, and I feel like I'm a good guy."
Brown added: "He set the bar before he even stepped on the floor. That set the standard."
The payoff extended beyond the locker room. Through the first four games, the series averaged 19.6 million viewers across ABC and ESPN, the most-watched NBA Finals since 1998, with Game 3 peaking at 26.3 million.
Brunson, who fell to the second round of the 2018 draft, framed the title as a citywide reward rather than a personal one.
"I feel like this entire city, every person who reps Orange & Blue, I feel like they were along for the ride," he said. "We definitely felt that energy."
