Derrick Rose may provide one more advantage for the Knicks in their pursuit of free agent Jalen Brunson, writes Zach Braziller of The New York Post. The Mavericks guard already has numerous links to New York, with team president Leon Rose as his former agent and Brunson’s father, Rick, as the team’s newest assistant coach.
But the connections go even further. When Jalen Brunson was growing up in Illinois, he formed a bond with Derrick Rose, who was a star point guard with the Bulls at the time.
“Jalen would go over to the Bulls facility and practice with the Bulls players,” Brunson’s high school coach, Pat Ambrose, tells Braziller. “That’s where he became good friends with Derrick Rose. So your story gets deep with the Knicks. Derrick saw that young Jalen was a very, very good player and Derrick was a Chicago kid, and really started to mentor Jalen basketball-wise.”
There’s more from New York:
- While Brunson will be the Knicks’ primary target when free agency begins this week, there are other options if the team can’t lure him out of Dallas. In a separate story, Braziller examines the point guard market involving both trades and free agents, focusing on Malcolm Brogdon, Dejounte Murray, Tyus Jones and Ricky Rubio, along with Kyle Anderson, a free agent forward who could fill the role of secondary playmaker.
- The Knicks were optimistic that they could trade up for Jaden Ivey during Thursday night’s draft and continued to make offers even after the Pistons selected the Purdue guard at No. 5, according to Ian Begley of SNY.tv. Begley isn’t sure exactly what the Knicks were offering, but he cites “frustration” in the team’s draft room when they couldn’t make a deal.
- Steve Popper of Newsday searches for silver linings after the Knicks’ draft night, which left many fans confused and angry. New York entered the draft with the 11th pick and hopes of moving up for Ivey, but the team wound up selecting Ousmane Dieng and sending him to the Thunder for three conditional future first-round picks. The Knicks also acquired the Bucks’ 2025 first-round selection in a separate deal involving the Hornets and Pistons. New York was able to send Kemba Walker‘s salary to Detroit, but still needs to create more cap space to make a max offer to Brunson.
Can Knicks be successful Failure after failure?
Ask me next week after they sign and trade for Jalen Brunson.
Brunson is good, but it will likely cost the Knicks players if they really want him. He’s not going to put the Knicks over the top. He’s small and is limited defensively because of it. Singing a non All-Star to a near max deal will be someone’s mistake.
@just
Small and limited defensively describes most of the allstar point guards. But I do agree that Brunson may not be a max worthy point guard
Agree u r right on target
Typical Knicks in tunnel vision.
Knicks are ready to offer $100 million contract if a team take away Reddish contracts contract
Knicks should trade for #4 and select Ivey one day earlier
Now the bot has turned into a time machine
Hahaha
Still don’t understand what the first line is trying to say.
Mavs should sign and trade Brunson to NY get some first round picks back. Then trade the picks to SA for Murray. Murray is better all around better than Brunson. Brunson has better footwork and can create his shot downlow. But thats about it
Knicks would have zero reason for agreeing to a sign and trade when they can just sign Brunson outright. Nor would Brunson have any incentive for making his new team worse. This is not the kind of situation where sign and trades occur. Mavs are kind of screwed, as they’ll likely lose Brunson with no ability to add an elite replacement, unless they make another trade. At this point NYK pretty much HAVE to get him, no matter what it takes. Brunson’s sitting pretty!
If there’s no sign and trade wouldn’t the Mavericks just match and keep Jalen Brunson?
He is an unrestricted free agent. Having said that, I’d guess 90% of the players in the league, being offered the same contract, would choose Dallas over the dumpster fire roster that is the Knicks. Dallas can actually offer Brunson MORE money than NY, because they have his Bird rights. It may come down to Cuban saying he’s not comfortable paying Brunson $30MM per year, with heavy luxury tax penalties.
I don’t see how the Mavs justify paying Brunson $20-25MM to be Doncic’s back up.
They shared the court for lots of minutes last season.
Dinwidddie is at least as good as Brunson, plus Doncic controls the ball usually anyway. Dins just doesn’t do Brunson’s slow dramatic drives as well, and never scored 44 in a playoff game.
The team never had a breakthrough being run by Brunson without Dins… of course there were other reasons for ’22 success
Brunson is a UFA. Mavs not only can match but also exceed, but it’s Brunson’s choice. Two things going for the Knicks are them having hired his father, and the chance to get out from under Doncic’s shadow.
You guys are right thank you for the correction. I keep thinking with Brunson’s age only 25, that he’s a restricted free agent.
@Seam
Unless Dallas wants to add Randle, who’s from Dallas, to the team. They can use another target for Luka to feed.
Yeah, except the Spurs won’t deal him within division, and those picks wouldn’t be enough.
Just to be clear, you have the Knicks sending enough 1st rounders to acquire Murray to Dallas, even though they don’t have to because they can sign Brunson outright. Instead of just… trading those 1sts to San Antonio for Murray, who is a much better player. I don’t think any of this is likely.
I thought the Knicks would take either AJ Groffon or Malaki Branham when those 2 were both still on the board for them, or even Ochai Agbaji, but they obviously were trying to add assets/open up space, potentially to move a couple of pieces as well?
I dont think I would use the money on Brunson. They added too many guys that needed the ball in their hands last year, and there are ways to get around that on their current roster, plus potentially moving a piece or 2, and then targeting certain other players…
Plus, I think they should take a look at their younger guards like McBride and Grimes, and then look to add a 3 and D option behind Barrett, a floor spacing big, and probably someone that can defend at the 4 spot off the bench/potentially also shoot (maybe Reddosh can help 1 of those areas of he is healthy/is more consistent with his shooting). If they open up that type of money, they should be able to add those pieces, unless certain guys are just angling to stay where they currently are for less money
If they can get someone like Brogdon for not much, they would be cool, but then od have to seriously question Indiana
I’ve been pretty critical of the Knicks moves last summer, but I don’t disagree w/ targeting Brunson even if we have to overpay to a degree this summer.
Brunson is a young-ish player with All Star potential who could potentially grow in an expanded role.
NY’s greatest asset is their market – to me the blueprint has always been to mimic what BRK and LAC did: build an intriguing enough young team that the next disgruntled superstar will be interested in leveraging the NYC market while joining, you know, a functional and competitive team.
Evan Fournier, Derrick Rose, and Nerlens Noel are not that. But a Barrett-Brunson pairing would be a step in the right direction, IMO. The question is what to do w/ the rest of the roster.
Brunson is ok, but in my opinion isn’t at that star level that would make me want to go and play for the Knicks. I don’t even think an all-star level is possible or sustainable for him, either. He’s in a good position with Doncic managing the offense, but how fast that will change if he were to play for the Knicks. I think he’s just a product of a situation and coach who was a former PG, very much like J Lin was under D’Antoni.
Great suggestions! It makes too much sense for the Knicks to do tho.
Should have also mentioned that they could have accomplished a couple of things as well. They could have still traded back, and gained assets, and gone for someone like a Christian Braun in the late teens/early 20s, who could have been a strong fit.
I just dont see the point in Brunson, unless they also are able to get rid of multiple pieces. I also forgot to mention quickley, who is a really good catch and shoot guy that can play off Randle, Barrett, and Rose. Not saying he would be a lead guard, but he could be used as part of the guard rotation with those other guys I mentioned. Move 1 of Fournier/Burks, Noel, and grab those pieces I mentioned, and take a look at those young guards, and go from there
Knicks need to clear another 8-10m to get him around 25m and Brunson wants a 5 year contract… only Dallas can offer that and that’s when a S&T takes place.
When LeBron went to Miami they did a sign and trade with cleavland and gave them a few picks because LeBron didn’t want to leave them empty handed even though miami could of signed him out right.
There were a different set of CBA rules in place when LBJ signed with MIA. Brunson can’t get a 5 year contract (or other DAL only terms) in a S&T contract. If that’s important to him, he’ll have to sign with DAL. It usually isn’t a big issue with non-max guys.
DAL is at least as likely to be the team wanting a S&T (into cap space, in whole or in part), for the TPE. In which event, they’ll be giving, nor receiving, picks.
Knicks need to forget about Brunson and proceed to engage the Spurs about Murray if he is truly available. Big difference between adequate and game changing.
Exactly. Murray is the kind of player you blow your assets on, this is what they have been waiting for. Hopefully they realize it.
I’d be good with either. Murray is definitely the better player – although we’ve never Brunson in an expanded role, but we don’t know what we don’t know I guess – but the question I’d have is how many assets do we have to give up to get Murray?
Whereas Brunson potentially comes for free (in terms of assets given up), which is appealing to me if a Brunson-Barrett pairing can get NY to the level where we can realistically use some of the assets we’d use to get Murray to get a true franchise guy.
NEED MURRAY, NOT BRUNSON… IF you give Brunson 100m to non ALL- STAR, now stuck with 100m contract, Fournier, Noel, Burks… You’ll need all those # 1 picks to get rid of them… HEY, ROSE IS A ROOKIE GM, they blew free agency last year with all that money spent and now getting rid of the same contracts…NEED DIFFERENCE MAKERS, NOT BRUNSON, SIGNING BRUNSON-DON’T MOVE NEEDLE- 7/8 to 10 play in? REALLY? …..
Noel and Burks are on one year, expiring deals. They don’t need to trade any of their 1sts to get rid of them. They can just keep them and have $20 million in cap space next offseason. Throw in Rose’s expiring $15 million deal and that’s $35 million in space for 2023.
I really dont get Knicks fans hating our draft. Guys, we traded #11, Kemba’s salary and 4 seconds for THREE firsts, how can u complain about that?
Picks have protection, i get it. But we won’t make these selections anyway, they are trade assests. We are building a war chest, picks, youngsters and tradeable contracts.
Despiste that, i dont love the idea of giving 25mm to Brunson, much rather handle 3 picks for D Murray. But anyway, our FO is making good moves this last couples yrs, why dont we trust them?
Knicks won’t win anything if Bronson gets $100 million contract
You don’t know what you’re talking about the Knucks gave up
2 22 first Rd picks 11 and 13
1 conditional 23 1st Rd pick DEN
4 2nd Rd picks
Walker
Got back
2 conditional heavily protected 1st Rd 23 picks
MIL 25 1 st Rd pick
That’s 7 picks and a player for 2 conditional picks and 1 probably late 1st Rd 25 pick
Disaster on so many fronts never saw anything like it.
You’re misunderstanding what the deals were, man. They didn’t give up two 2022 1sts. They gave up one, the #11 pick overall. The 13th pick passed through them to Detroit as part of a larger deal. It was not theirs to keep. The 11th and 13th picks were part of the same deal, so it’s literally impossible for them to have given up both.
And as I mentioned in a different thread, the 2nd round picks are nearly worthless. You’re severely overvaluing them.
I broke this down for you elsewhere, but their deals boil down to:
Give:
2022 #11 pick
Four 2nds (which, again, have almost no value)
Kemba Walker
Get:
Three 1sts, probably conveying #15-25 in probably 2024-2026
$9 million in cap space
It’s nowhere near a ‘disaster’ and is actually a potentially decent move. It probably won’t move the needle much, but the only asset they gave up that has any real value is the 2022 #11 pick.
Once you get past the top 4 picks, I’m not sure I can say with confidence that there’s all-stars waiting to happen. To me, it was a weak draft with the majority playing roles or the bench. Trading out I thought was an excellent move by the Knicks and acquiring the assets could help if leveraged properly in a deal. The reality though is the Knicks need to stop signing players for the sake of signing players (i.e. Fournier).
Why Brunson over Murray baffles me
If Leon Rose took my advice (he never seems to return my calls…) and deferred on extending Randle, passed on signing Fournier, Noel et al, then the Knicks would be sitting on a gigantic amount of cap space – right as Kevin Durant is potentially on the cusp of asking out of Brooklyn
A signing of, I don’t know, say, LaVine or Beal – with the inevitable Durant trade demand to the borough to the West of his would then actually be a feasible option.
Instead we’re talking about Jalen Brunson vs Dejounte Murray, and trying to figure out how many 1sts we gave up to get off Kemba’s contract…
This is why for a market like NYC it never makes sense to make Indiana moves that keep you (theoretically) competitive at the expense of having maximum ammo ready for the 1st team All-NBA guys who:
1.) Have the mood swings of teenage females, and:
2) Only ask for Manhattan + some semblance of competence to leverage their brands in NYC
Great post first off, couldn’t agree more
Some random thoughts-
The Melo years still linger on this org like an old fart that’s worked it’s way to the dark corner.
Thibs (a great coach) was brought in to try and get back a winning culture b/c those years were soooo bad …. Problem being, they probably needed a full fledged reboot on top of the reboot that was (never fully ) built upon on the pre Melo reboot
The chains so messy that 2021 comes along randomly and the taste of not being completely irrelevant is too much to not act upon in the offseason .
Whew, now for the good news, I think Rose has a plan for once (even tho Forun was a major headscratcher to me ) and NBA franchises can be turned around quickly with a little luck and hard work/planning. There’s plenty of cap next year and the draft assets are fully stocked. They should be in great position to capitalize on some of these expiring’s at the break as well (for either value OR that disgruntled STAR) and Rose has shown a strong perchance to be able to rub 2 dimes together and get a quarter thus far
So the plan is hope Durant and Levine want to come to the Knicks again? I’ve seen this episode before, I won’t tell you how it ends.
Yeah, there would not be that much capspace anyway.
Problem is Dolan, not Melo.
I’d say its more Dolan’s hiring practices than the dude himself at this point. Going thru the last 3 PoBO, we have a HoF coach with very little FO experience, a money guy that had a hand in Magic’s investment in Starbucks + his theaters – not roster building, and now an agent who clearly wasn’t a part of planning the ‘leg work’ for sourcing clients. Maybe a “mover & shaker” (although his “interview” with Breen tells me otherwise).
Donnie W was the last “executive executive” and you could clearly see what his plan was before Dolan stepped in and razed the whole thing to the ground. I def think expectations (whether set by Dolan; the board of Dolans; or the combo of market pressure and unqualified for role) can be at fault too.
We need to see how the Knicks look with a “basketball person” at the helm and Dolan’s “hands-off” approach. He could very well be hands-off and giving autonomy to the PoBOs since Walsh, but like I explained… those have been a coach, a CFO, and now an agent.
How shocked are we at the disaster when the hospital admin is in the operating room with a scalpel?
Donnie Walsh did exactly what needed to be done and cleaned the slate, only to watch Dolan fill it up again for back pages. He’s just a bad owner.
Yup. Then we had a coach, CFO, and now agent in the seat Walsh vacated. None with prior FO experience. Like I said: hospital admin in the OR with a scalpel. Why are we surprised the results have been all over the place?
Where do I place a vote for you for Knicks GM?
KNICKS FRONT OFFICE WILL BE GONE IN 2 YRS… WE MAKE FUN OF DOLAN, BUT HE WON’T BE SUCKERED BY THESE FRONT OFFICE FOOLS, INCLUDING YOU WORLD WIDE WES…
Prestige Worldwide
Dolan cannot be suckered by anyone, given all the management voices trying to be heard.
And few people are suckered by all caps.
Knucks have a situation like the Mets did with Brodie V, an ex-Agent running the team. The only reason I see for this Draft Disaster is that Leon’s son is Brunsons Agent. Leon Rose is not a qualified NBA Executive and he and his Thibs will eventually have to follow all the others who have failed under Dolan’s reign. Like the Wilpons and Steve Cohen probably the only thing that can change for the Knucks is Dolan selling the team unfortunately.
That Kemba trade was so unnecessary. Why not trade down from 13 in order to dump another expiring contract? I’m fine with the extra first rounders. Hopefully they dump Burks in a trade, say bye to Taj, but not a big fan of Brunson. Certainly not at $25MM per.
Burks did not cost that much when he was under 30. Should have cost, but did not. I doubt NYK is getting calls.
Brunson would be more popular in MSG.
Murray could be had if Irving goes to Spurs.
The point of Murray being available is because the Spurs don’t want to pay wasted max dollars during a rebuild. There’s no way they’re going to sign Irving.
Taj has already been waived, so you got your wish there.
Knicks have plenty of Picks to make a trade. And plenty of expiring contracts. Plus young players with Value.
Quickley, Mitch, Grimes ……
Brunson can run the show on Bwy. He will never do that in Dallas. He’s as good as gone. I just don’t want to trade for him.
He and Rose do have a history. It’s looking like he’s coming.
All I know is nothing good will happen. Till they move Randle. It has to be a priority.
Like Fred Katz said, Knicks and Mavs need to dump salaries to avoid the tax before signing Brunson … There is 4 teams with cap to do so, then each FO have to dump contracts asap to neutralize the other team to make that deal possible …
Dallas should trade for Campazo is a Real Madrid guy, speaks spanish like Luka
Campazzo was not good last year. He killed the Nuggets whenever he was on the floor. .503 TS% is pretty awful. Here’s a post breaking down how truly bad Campazzo was this year:
link to reddit.com
Campazzo is JJ Barrea 2.0 who was Doncic BF … Is a enro minded PG : past first floor manager, hard nose on D like Brunson is also … I think he could be a Bck up ans he needs a new atmosphere to prove his talent.
Knicks should have give away Burks or Noel in the Draft trades just to be sure to not overpay for Brunson cause if Mavs manage to propose him 125M$+ the Knicks FO goes Bad beat.