NEW YORK — Jalen Brunson gave the New York Knicks a $113 million discount in potential salary, and they gave him the title of team captain.
Two seasons into a partnership that has helped produce the Knicks’ greatest success in a quarter of a century, it’s clear the team and player believe in each other. Now they have at least a few more years to determine whether it can yield something more.
“This is literally just the beginning,” Brunson said Thursday.
The team staged a ceremonial event at Madison Square Garden for Brunson, complete with former stars such as Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing and celebrities that included actor and Knicks fan Ben Stiller. Ewing narrated a video that included a picture of him with Brunson as a boy, when his father, Rick, played for the Knicks.
“People just want to be around you, Jalen,” Ewing said on the video. “You’re a born leader.”
That attracted the Knicks to Brunson just as much as his playing skills when they signed him in the summer of 2022. Coach Tom Thibodeau, who had Rick Brunson as one of his assistant coaches in Chicago and again in New York, watched Brunson grow up and noticed not only how hard he worked, but how other players gravitated to him.
But even some of those players couldn’t be blamed if they questioned Brunson’s financial sense this summer.
He signed a four-year contract extension that is worth about $156.5 million. Had Brunson finished the final year of his current deal next season and then become a free agent, he would have been eligible for a five-year, $269 million contract.
Other players have taken less than their maximum allowable salary. Few would even consider passing on an extra $113 million.
“I think about every decision that I make and I’m completely comfortable with what I’ve done,” Brunson said.
“Obviously I’m well off, myself and my family, we’re obviously well off, so that’s first and foremost. But I want to win. I want to win here.”
Brunson’s financial sacrifice certainly helps make that easier, with harsher penalties for teams over the salary cap now part of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement. And with the Knicks giving OG Anunoby a five-year deal worth more than $210 million, trading for Mikal Bridges and with Julius Randle also eligible for an extension, it wouldn’t be easy to build a winning team and then keep it together, so Brunson doesn’t question his decision.
“Winning trumps everything that I do individually,” Brunson said.
The Knicks have started to do that since persuading Brunson to leave the Dallas Mavericks. They have gone to the Eastern Conference semifinals in both seasons, after not getting there at all since 2013, and have won playoff series in back-to-back seasons for the first time since doing it nine straight years from 1992 to 2000.
Brunson led last season’s 50-win team with 28.7 points per game, fourth in the NBA. He made his first All-Star team, finished fifth in the voting for the NBA’s MVP award and then was brilliant in the playoffs, becoming the first player since Michael Jordan with four straight postseason games of 40 or more points.
Still, Brunson said Thursday that all he could think about from last season was breaking his left hand in the second half of the Knicks’ Game 7 loss to the Indiana Pacers in the second round.
The Knicks have built a team they think they can go further, and Brunson is eager to lead it. He said he has studied players such as the Yankees’ Derek Jeter and the Patriots’ Tom Brady, who guided their franchises to multiple titles and were known for team-first approaches.
“People can say they want to do a lot of things, but it’s all about their actions,” Brunson said. “Obviously this is no guarantee that we win a championship, right? This is just me wanting to do my part to help this team try and get one. So it’s all about the journey and I’m happy to be a part of it.”