Jalen Brunson, the star player for the New York Knicks, believes that his old team, the Dallas Mavericks, didn’t feel that they needed him to win the league this summer. However, if he were to knock on any NBA team’s door, they would probably welcome him with open arms.
As the Mavericks faced the Boston Celtics in the 2024 NBA Finals, Brunson had this to say to Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report (h/t Kade Kimble of Fan Nation’s Dallas Basketball).
The star player for the Knicks said, “They clearly didn’t need me, because they’re in the finals right now.”
It has nothing to do with them. I have the highest regard for that company. I speak with Mark, I speak with everyone of them. Simply put, I’m grateful for everything. Everyone moves on; there are no resentments. “It’s what it is,” said Brunson.
Jalen Brunson of the Knicks laid the groundwork for the Mavericks’ ascent in the Western Conference.
During his time with the team, Luka Doncic and the Mavericks advanced to new heights of success in the NBA Western Conference thanks in large part to the Villanova product. The Mavs, led by Brunson, went from having 42 wins in 2020–21 to 52 wins in 2021–22 and a trip to the Western Conference Finals that spring.
In his coming-out party against the Utah Jazz in the first round, he scored 28.7 points per game, 18.7 points per game in the Conference Semifinals, and 18 points per game in the Conference Finals against the eventual champion Golden State Warriors, boosting his 16.3 points from the 2021–22 regular season.
Next to Doncic, Brunson might have been able to enjoy the same kind of success as Kyrie Irving.
When it came down to it, Brunson developed into a Knicks MVP contender for 2023–2024. The Mavericks had a dismal season after their Conference Finals berth in 2022 after they left Dallas in the offseason, but Doncic and new All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving helped the team make it to the Finals for just the second time ever.
The fact that Doncic always had a 25 PPG bucket-getter on his side was the unifying element in both situations. Even Brunson acknowledged that he never saw himself developing into the player he is today, but how much more success they could have had together if he had stayed in Dallas is impossible to predict.
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