Via Yaron Weitzman
FOX Sports NBA Writer
In the winter of 2021, about a year after arriving to help his friend/partner, Leon Rose runs KnicksWilliam “Worldwide Wes” Wesley is talking to an associate about the duo’s franchise plans.
“I told Brock,” Wesley told his partner, referring to Brock Aller, a friend the Knicks had recently hired as their chief strategist, “that the only way he and I had a problem was if you he didn’t have enough content for DJ Wagner’s draft at the time he entered the draft.”
Wagner at the time was one of the country’s top promising sophomores. More importantly, he is the son of Dajuan Wagner, the former NBA The lottery chooses who Rose has represented as an agent. More importantly, he’s the grandson of Milt Wagner, another former NBA player and longtime friend of both Rose and Wesley, who, like Wagner, are both South Jersey natives.
Wesley made it clear to his partner that he was joking. But the problem was clear.
“Family is how we built this team,” he said.
Knicks Pursuing Jalen Brunson With Four-Year, $110 Million Offer
The Knicks are said to have signed the former Mavericks point guard, trading Nerlens Noel and Alec Burks to Detroit to free up cap space. They can now offer Brunson a four-year, $110 million contract. Nick Wright explains why New York’s all-out on Brunson is a “bad idea”.
It took a while, but we’ve finally seen the amount of time he and Rose are willing to go when it comes to making this commitment. Sure, they spent more than the first two years bringing back names from their past. Rose’s former client was designated as the head coach. The list includes players from Kentucky – a school coached by John Calipari, another longtime friend of Wesley’s – and the Creative Arts Agency, where Rose previously worked.
But those are friends. Peers. Partner. Family is something different, something you value more than anything, and there is only one NBA family other than the Wagners that Rose and Wesley consider their own. That would be the family of Rick Brunson, the former NBA point guard who also became his home in South Jersey and happens to be Rose’s first NBA client — and whom the Knicks recently hired as an assistant. trainer.
It’s important to keep all of this in mind when breaking down the Knicks’ recent string of decisions. By now, you’re definitely up to date: The Knicks set aside paychecks for the past week so they could sign a contract. Dallas Mavericks protection point Jalen Brunson into a near-maximum deal, according to sources, possibly in the range of $110 million over four years.
Jalen, of course, is the son of Rick Brunson. He is also a former client of Rose and is currently represented by a team of CAA agents including Sam, Rose’s son. The contract can’t be formal until Thursday at 6 p.m. ET, when the NBA’s free agency ban is lifted. But that’s just red tape. The deal is done.
It needs to be pointed out that Brunson is a great player, one who will make the Knicks better and who very well is the best point guard they have had since Stephon Marbury. He can create bounce for himself and for others (he averaged 16.3 points and 4.8 assists per game last season) and, despite his diminutive size (6 foot-1), he’s one of the league’s better finishers at the belt.
This, combined with his smooth 3-point strike (37.3 3P%), makes him a tough cover and, statistically, one of the tournament’s better practicers. fight. All of this is why he was able to explode in the first round of last season’s knockout stages and lead the Mavericks to a pair of wins before. Jazz despite being injured Luka Dončić observed from the bench. Oh, and Brunson just turned 26 through August, which means he’s just entering his prime and about five years younger than the players the Knicks have had in nine-figure trading history. .
But it’s also worth highlighting how far the Knicks are going to attract Brunson. Because it’s not just the money they’re giving up. Back last week, the Knicks waive the 11th pick in the draft and attached six future second-round picks to clear unwanted contracts and $6 million in cash, all to sign the contract. with Brunson. This is the kind of maneuver we often see from teams chasing All-NBA players who nod their résumés, not those who have never averaged 17 points per game.
There are two ways to read all of this. One is that Brunson is young, good and on the rise and an annual salary of around $27.5 million is the current salary for players who fit that description. It’s also possible that the Knicks, working with more information regarding Brunson’s makeup and psyche than anyone else, see something in him that others may not, like they did with Immanuel Quickley. They knocked out the former Kentucky guard with a 25th pick in the 2020 draft, even though he was widely predicted to be a second pick, and he turned out to be a reveal.
But there is a more cynical way to read this. It was never said, but when the Knicks gave the reins to a power agent and a power broker, everyone around the team and the NBA understood that the main reason for doing it was to someday they might recruit and attract shiny stars. Do you remember the name: Devin Booker, The town of Karl-Anthony, Damian Lillard.
Yet here we are, nearly three years later, and the Knicks are nowhere nearer to contention, nowhere closer to relevance. They might as well be on a hamster wheel – and there’s no exit on the horizon.
Instead, Rose and Wesley seem to have turned around and back to what they know best, about what helped them both reach their respective heights. Family is their bet. The future of the Knicks depends on whether this bet is because Rose and Wesley know Brunson better than most, or simply because Brunson is a member of that family.
Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports and the author of Rise to the top: the Philadelphia 76ers and the most incredible run in professional sports history. Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.
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