Jalen Brunson not re-signing with the Mavericks worked better for them in the end

Last week, Mark Cuban once again brought Jalen Brunson’s 2022 departure from the Dallas Mavericks into the news thanks to a podcast appearance on Brunson’s podcast, Roommates Show. (If you’ve watched it, you know you’ve never seen Josh Hart that quiet.) At DLLS, we have conversations about everything in the news, sometimes even in written format. But we also try to take it one step further than simply what was said.

Tim Cato and Bobby Karalla discuss what would have happened if the Mavericks had re-signed Brunson and why, despite the one-year catastrophe that occurred, it might have worked out for the best.

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Tim Cato: Bobby, we’re here to discuss an alternate history of sorts, one which imagines what would have happened if the Dallas Mavericks had simply re-signed Jalen Brunson.

We’re doing this because, last week, Mark Cuban once again broached the subject in what I clocked as a profoundly awkward podcast appearance on Brunson’s own show. I know there’s fatigue within many Mavericks fans about the whole topic, but Cuban’s the one who brought it back up! It’s drama befitting of the league that I lovingly refer to as Keeping Up With The NBA. What’d you make of the interview?

Bobby Karalla: “Awkward” is a pretty good way of putting it, but it also felt like they skipped a few steps as they picked up the story right at the very end. It would be like two exes sending frustrated late-night texts to rehash what went wrong, but beginning the conversation at, “So, there I was, about to break up with you, right?” Cuban mentioned his belief in Brunson skyrocketed during the playoffs. Well, that was four years into their partnership. Meanwhile, Brunson told his side events beginning at or around 6 p.m. Eastern on June 30, 2022 (and of course not a moment sooner, wink wink). Why did it get to that point? Why wasn’t it settled sooner? When did things start to splinter? If you’re gonna leave that part out, why bother?

The what if-ness of NBA fandom is always fun to think about, though. Based on their telling of events (and based on my own experience while employed by the team), the Mavs really were planning to meet with Brunson before things fell apart for good. What if that meeting had happened? What if there never even had to be a meeting because Dallas handled contract talks days, weeks, or even months earlier? What if Jalen Brunson was still a Maverick?

Cato: The first thing we have to figure out is the mechanics. Are we imagining what would’ve happened if Brunson re-signed for the max contract extension in the midst of the season or a more fantastical scenario where the Mavericks matched New York’s offer and he chose them? I think, more realistically, it would’ve taken something closer to the full max, which Dallas clearly was never inclined to offer.

Karalla: I’m taking quite a leap here and might be out of my depths, but I trust you’ll be here to publicly correct me on this, Tim: Brunson averaged almost 18 and 6 on better than 51 percent shooting from Nov. 2 to Dec. 31 to start the 2021-22 season, and helped keep the team’s playoff hopes alive afloat amid massive Covid complications and a lengthy Luka Dončić absence. You’re telling me he really would’ve accepted a relatively modest four-year, $54 million contract after that? I know Brunson just left money on the table in New York to help keep the Nova Knicks together, but still! If he would have, what a bummer the Mavs missed that opportunity. 

But let’s have some fun here and say Dallas signs him to a max, or very close to it, that ensuing offseason. For the sake of easy math, let’s say they lock him in at $25 million per season. Do you believe the Mavs would have ultimately retained Brunson for good? Or do you think they still might have had wandering eyes over toward Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn?

Cato: The whole thing was a messy he-said-he-said situation. I know there were extension talks amidst the season, and that Mavericks sources told me Brunson’s camp offered it directly at least with an ultimatum. Let’s save that for Tuesday’s DLLS show with Marc Stein. The point of this conversation is to imagine how Dallas would have changed had Brunson been retained.

Yeah, it’s plausible Dallas would have still traded him for Irving that following season. At least Brunson’s decision was influenced by his perception that Dallas did not value him as a long-term building block. When January 2023 ended, Brunson was averaging about 23 points and six assists with the Knicks. He went on to have three 40-point games in the final three months, but he was still improving throughout that season. If he had stayed in Dallas, it’s reasonable to think he’d be averaging a bit less than that, right? Is it reasonable to think the team might still have seen Irving as a talent upgrade?

Karalla: I suspect they would have seen it as a talent upgrade, yes. But more importantly, and more abstractly, they would have certainly viewed him as a culture or stature or legitimacy upgrade. I’m not alleging Nico Harrison would’ve traded Brunson at his then-peak for a big boost in the aura department, but it’s hard to imagine Klay Thompson coming to Dallas without Irving already being here, for example. The Mavs’ current front office vision depends on having an established veteran superstar to set the tone on the court and in the locker room, and also, critically, to help recruit. In other words, to do all the things Luka will one day hopefully do, but may not be completely ready to handle all by himself yet, and Brunson certainly wasn’t that guy at the time… although he definitely seems like he is now.

Cato: And I’m not sure he ever would’ve been that guy in Dallas. So let’s recap: Dallas dealt Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, a 2029 first-round pick, and two second-rounders to Brooklyn. With Irving making $39 million that season, the trade led by Brunson’s $25 million would need another $10-to-$15 million in salary. Dāvis Bertāns and a first-round pick? Or maybe just the two seconds? Actually, was Irving’s value so low that it could have been a straight swap? We’re completely making this up. What does your gut say?

Karalla: I bet Brooklyn would’ve said yes to a Brunson-for-Kyrie deal including Bertāns or you and me without giving it a second thought. If that would’ve happened, the Nets could be the Knicks. Instead, they’ll be scouting Cooper Flagg for the next six months. 

Cato: Oh, another white guy who likes basketball wants to live in Brooklyn, huh? Cooper’s not breaking new ground.

Karalla: Another interesting scenario to think about would be this: Let’s say the Mavs re-sign Brunson, but then decide that things aren’t quite right and they need to make another move. I’m not sure what kind of value a Finney-Smith and Dinwiddie package would have had with an extra first-rounder or two, but there’s some alternate timeline out there where the Mavs form a big three including Dončić, Brunson, and Third Star X. That’s not getting them into the Kevin Durant or even the Rudy Gobert conversation at the time, but they wouldn’t have been too far off from the number of available picks and movable salary needed to pull off a move like that. 

Cato: Yeah, Durant was the first place my mind went, but no. Dallas couldn’t have beaten what Phoenix offered: stars and picks. Finney-Smith was valued around the league, but he wasn’t young nor had any star ceiling. Are there other players who wouldn’t have required two young talents and an unbelievable number of picks?

Karalla: What about a guy like Jerami Grant or Dejounte Murray? Or finding a way to force their way into the Deandre Ayton chase in some sort of sign-and-trade before Indiana offered a max that Phoenix quickly matched? (The 2022 offseason was a weird time.) Would that have even been worth it? At that point you might be adding guys with big contract numbers just to do it. Maybe the current timeline is the better one anyway.

Cato: Yeah, if this exercise has any purpose, it’s to challenge our priors — from a process standpoint, Dallas clearly still failed in letting Brunson walk — to see that the outcome wouldn’t have been any better with another season with him here. Even offering Brunson to the Nets for Durant, not Irving, was unlikely to accentuate that deal to any place it would’ve beat Phoenix’s offer. I can’t think of star players who moved even last summer, other than Jrue Holiday, who truly would have changed Dallas’ perspective entirely.

So let’s go back to this hypothetical Brunson-for-Irving swap at the 2023 deadline. Dallas would have been better with that half-ish season of Brunson, but the team that just had made it to the conference finals was starting to disintegrate. Finney-Smith would still be on the team but so would Reggie Bullock’s decline. I think Christian Wood probably would’ve still been traded for, since it was more of a salary transaction for Dallas than anything else, and his situation would have blown up quicker. But the Mavericks probably have five more wins when Irving arrives, and that along with Finney-Smith sticking around has them coast into the postseason.

You know the craziest scenario I can imagine here? Dallas ends up with the sixth seed. The Los Angeles Lakers still end up seventh due to the Play-In Tournament. Both win their first round series — the Lakers over the Grizzlies, which happened, and a hypothetical one where Dallas beats Sacramento — which leads to the Mavericks ousting the Lakers in the second round. It’s a conference finals repeat, sure, but it also means the Lakers don’t get there. Which means the Lakers then have no reason not to keep their roster together and pursue Irving that summer, which means he leaves Dallas for nothing. Hah, I’m sorry.

Karalla: That’s a borderline lethal dose of hopium. But … Luka and Kyrie absolutely could’ve beaten the Kings. And any mythical world where Finney-Smith is still on the Mavs is a place I’d like to live, so I’m into this. Except for the Irving-to-Lakers part.

Cato: But after gaming this out, the real conclusion I keep coming to is this: There’s almost no scenario I can see where Dallas squeezes more value out of a roster by re-signing Brunson than what happened. Brunson almost certainly does enough to prevent the team’s catastrophic collapse, which chalks off Dereck Lively II ever coming here with the No. 10 pick. 

Finney-Smith might fit this roster better than P.J. Washington, truly, but Dallas needed to find a guard and a center for Doncic. As we’ve seen, it’s the players between those two spots who can always be obtained. Very few centers were better than Lively in last year’s postseason, and they weren’t players who would’ve ended up in Dallas no matter the circumstances.

Karalla: Agreed. None of this has even taken into account the fact that Knick Brunson’s touch and time of possession numbers are eerily similar to Luka’s, whereas Irving has been able to score efficiently at volume while playing a much more complementary role. But that’s almost beside the point. The Mavs wouldn’t have ended up with Lively or anyone nearly as good as him if they retained Brunson. He may or may not ever make an All-Star team, but it’s still a convincing enough tiebreaker to call the Mavs-Brunson-Irving-Knicks saga a pretty solid win-win, at worst. 

We did it. Everybody can just have a good time forever now.