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

[Jmaciscool]

I’m still in the camp that the Mavs chances are at 50%. It looks like there isn’t gonna be a dark horse that I thought there would be, so NY now owns the full other 50%. It probably does come down to the money, but I am questioning and conspiracy theorizing everything related to this whole fiasco. Almost feels like Donnie Nelson is running the campaign to get JB paid!

TBH, my realistic thought is that there is a list of things that JB wants (run his own team, $$$, winning, working with his dad, etc) that neither Dallas nor NY can completely fulfill.  I imagine he has a certain (different) number in his head of what he would accept to play for each team based on how many checkboxes that team checks and how many things he would have to give up.

I think it's pretty clear that the number to sign with the Mavs is much higher than the number to sign with the Knicks, and the Knicks have already matched Jalen's number of what would make it work for him to sign there.  The Mavs pretty clearly did not (initially) match the number Jalen had to sign with them and that's why all signs pointed to him signing with the Knicks.

My hope is that the Mavs have communicated that they are raising their offer to match up with what Jalen had in mind and that is why he called the meeting in order to see the final pitch and determine the actual best fit.

I agree that avoiding tampering could be the main purpose, but in reality I think it's pretty easy to avoid tampering charges as long as they don't announce the contract at 6:01 EST, so I'm not sure that setting up a meeting really makes a difference with tampering.