Jalen 'Can He Play Alongside Luka?' Brunson

[dirkfansince1998]

The somewhat unusual thing about Brunson is he has a super-cheap non-guaranteed 4th year next season.  If Dallas elects to pay him that amount, he is UFA the summer of 22 and we have no control.  One way of mitigating that is to give him an extension, but that is limited to 120% of the average salary or about $12 million.  We have examples of similar PG's making more than that.  So, probably not a solution.

Your post reminded me of another possible solution.  I need to look this up, but I think we could make Jalen free this summer by foregoing our option.  That would make Jalen RFA this summer with a small hold and we can pay him whatever we want.  This doesn't happen often (four year deals for 2nd rounders aren't the norm).  Houston and Chandler Parsons went through this back in 2014.  The choice was to pay him his small non-guaranteed 4th year and probably lose him the next season as a UFA.  Or, Houston could make him RFA that summer and presumably retain him after doing a bunch of other free agent signings.  We all know how that worked out.

That would potentially solve the 22 UFA issue.  It would just cost Cuban some extra money in the 21-22 season.  As you point out, we don't have to have cap room in 21 to do this.  Brunson's cap hold it just a little bit more than his 2021 non-guaranteed salary.

Question for the cap experts

the Larry Bird exception allows teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own free agents, at an amount up to the maximum salary. To qualify as a Bird free agent, a player must have played three seasons without being waived or changing teams as a free agent.

Why would the Mavs lose the bird rights? Even if Brunson is a UFA the Mavs should be able to pay him. He obviously could choose another team but money wouldn´t be the problem.
Isn´t that exactly what a lot of us are proposing for Richardson and THJ? Keep the cap hold and resign both of them in the offseason.