Former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban joined the Roommates Show, a podcast hosted by former Mav Jalen Brunson and his Knicks teammate Josh Hart and discussed Brunson’s free agency that led him to leave Dallas for New York.
Brunson described his perspective on what was said after the Mavs were eliminated in the Western Conference finals by the Golden State Warriors in 2022. He saw Cuban’s postgame interview saying that the Mavs could pay him the most money.
“Obviously you go into free agency and you start seeing all these moves that the Knicks are making, and then obviously my dad going to the Knicks, there as an assistant coach,” Brunson said. “So then I’m like alright that’s interesting. That’s something that is very unique and I just don’t know how I could live with myself if I didn’t at least explore that option.”
Brunson said he lined up a meeting with the Knicks, after which he would meet with the Mavericks. Cuban agreed that was true, to a degree.
It should be noted that the NBA later investigated the Knicks and that December announced that the team would have to forfeit its 2025 second-round pick for engaging in free agency discussions with Brunson before league rules allowed negotiations.
“Because they wanted us to come to New York, and we’re like okay, but what are we going to discuss?” Cuban said. “We need to have some reference on what we’re going to be talking about if we come to New York. We’re like ‘We want to keep him,’ but we’re not going to just show up in New York for you just to say no.”
Cuban then said that the Mavs reached out to find out what number they were looking at having to match, but they were told Brunson was busy going to a wedding.
“That was pretty much the last we heard,” Cuban said.
“Once we got the number from the Knicks, like I said, I’m going to keep saying this from Jalen Brunson’s point of view, I didn’t hear anything else from the Mavericks,” Brunson responded. “It was my agent saying to me, ‘Oh they’re not giving us a number.’”
According to Cuban, the Mavs just wanted to know a range and what number they needed to get to. They sent Brunson’s agent a number, but were told it was too low.
“We were hoping we’d have a home court advantage, he’d been here four years, at least give us that opportunity,” Cuban said. “Then when it came down to it and it looked like you were going to go to the Knicks, it was like well really the only number that’s going to make it work is a max out contract. And that was the last of it.”
They agreed that there were no hard feelings and they were happy that things worked out for both sides. Brunson has taken a leap and become one of the best players in the NBA as the face of the Knicks and the Mavs just went to the NBA Finals.
However, there was one portion that got messy that needed to be discussed.
“The only thing that I didn’t like about the whole situation was when Mark said, ‘When the parents got involved, that’s when things got messy,’” Brunson said. “That was the one thing I kinda was like, ‘Damn that was a jab.’”
Cuban didn’t see it as a jab.
“I apologize, I put you in a certain way, it wasn’t the intention. But it was hard to deal with,” Cuban said. “It was a unique negotiation in a lot of different ways.”
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