{"id":270475,"date":"2026-06-18T03:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T03:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/270475\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T03:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T03:52:10","slug":"how-the-brooklyn-nets-couldve-had-jalen-brunson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/270475\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Brooklyn Nets Could&#8217;ve Had Jalen Brunson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6t\">Jalen Brunson recently helped the New York Knicks win their first championship in 53 years, earning Finals MVP.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6w\">Before Brunson helped transform the Knicks into a powerhouse, the world was starting to see just what he was capable of on the game&#8217;s biggest stage with the Dallas Mavericks.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6z\">In hindsight, several teams likely regret passing on Brunson, who ultimately fell to No. 33 in the 2018 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"72\">The Brooklyn Nets very well could&#8217;ve been one of those teams, as they had the No. 29 pick, which they used on D\u017eanan Musa.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"75\">Though the Nets were seemingly all set at point guard at that time, with D&#8217;Angelo Russell and Spencer Dinwiddie manning the position, Brunson still could&#8217;ve gotten meaningful reps on an up-and-coming team and mixed and matched nicely with Russell and Dinwiddie&#8217;s skillsets.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"78\">Had Brunson remained in Brooklyn through the arrival of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, he could&#8217;ve provided valuable depth and stability whenever Irving was unavailable.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7b\">Assuming Brunson wasn&#8217;t going out in any potential James Harden trade, he also could&#8217;ve gotten meaningful run on that superteam, especially with Dinwiddie out of the picture and the Nets&#8217; Big 3 dealing with their own injuries and other circumstances.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7e\">If the Nets had seen something in Brunson, perhaps they could&#8217;ve looked to build their future around him after the failed KD and Kyrie experiment.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7h\">Instead, Brunson saw tremendous growth alongside Luka Don\u010di\u0107 in their four years together in Dallas, but because the Mavericks <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/33801390\/nba-playoffs-2022-jalen-brunson-star-turn-dallas-mavericks-massive-free-agency-implications\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">weren&#8217;t willing to sign<\/a> Brunson to a four-year, $55 million extension before the 2021-22 season, according to ESPN&#8217;s Tim MacMahon, that opened the door for the Knicks to swoop in and offer a four-year, $104 million deal to make the Villanova product their starting point guard.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7k\">However, if Brunson had decided to extend his stay in Texas, there seems to be a chance he could&#8217;ve <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/KnickFilmSkool\/status\/1824439138512150745\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">ended up on the other New York team<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7n\">&#8220;The funny thing is, if Brunson signs that extension with Dallas, I think there is a high likelihood that he would be with the Brooklyn Nets right now,&#8221; MacMahon said. &#8220;Mark Cuban has always been about chasing stars. But, I think there&#8217;s a decent chance that Jalen Brunson would have been moved to Brooklyn with Kyrie Irving still ending up in Dallas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7q\">At this point, all the Nets can do is move forward and either <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/nets\/onsi\/brooklyn-nets-projected-to-select-next-jalen-brunson-at-nba-draft\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">draft their next Brunson<\/a> or land <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/nets\/onsi\/brooklyn-nets-among-favorites-to-land-two-time-mvp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a two-time MVP<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson recently helped the New York Knicks win their first championship in 53 years, earning Finals MVP.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-270475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}