BRUNSON BURNER: to NYK for 4yrs/$104M (no SnT) | NYK docked 2025 2nd for tampering

[cow]

It's true that we don't know some things, but I don't think those "maybes" are equivalent, since there are multiple people reporting the range that Dallas was comfortable offering. Even Skin said he was 99% sure he knew how high Dallas was willing to go, despite not reporting the number. That implies there was an upper limit.

No one knows how the negotiations went down though.

-Mavs had a number to present.
-Knicks had a number to present.
-Agent tells the Mavs that matching isn't good enough for Jalen and would need to be blown away which might have been a non-starter for the Mavs to come up off their initial number.  

And while I think there is a ton to be critical of the Mavs in this situation, having a valuation on a player and then letting him walk because someone blew your doors off is something I'm not going to criticize.  Maybe Jalen continues to exceed expectations and makes that contract look like a bargain.  Time will tell but I'm not going to fault them for being pragmatic.