The New York Post’s Stefan Bondy pushed back against a resurfaced clip of Carmelo Anthony saying in 2024 that Jalen Brunson left $113 million on the table when re-signing with the New York Knicks.<\/p>\n
“That number always included an extra two years that Brunson will make up on his next contract,” Bondy wrote Saturday on social media.<\/p>\n
He added the “real number” Brunson gave up was $37 million.<\/p>\n
Bondy was responding to a recently reshared clip<\/a> of Anthony discussing Brunson’s contract in a 2024 episode of Podcast P with Paul George.<\/p>\n Anthony was at the time citing a report from former ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski<\/a> detailing Brunson’s four-year, $156.5 million deal with the Knicks.<\/p>\n Wojnarowski noted that amount was “$113 million less guaranteed than [Brunson] is eligible to sign for a year from now.”<\/p>\n Brunson would have been able for a five-year, $269 million deal had he signed with the Knicks in 2025, per Spotrac’s Keith Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n Considering the difference between those two deals necessitates consideration of the fact that Brunson holds a player option for 2028-29.<\/p>\n Assuming he opts out of that fourth year, Brunson will make about $113 million on the first three years of his current extension, per Smith.<\/p>\n He would have made about $150 million over a three-year span had he waited a year for another contract, Smith noted. That comes out to a difference of about $37 million over three seasons.<\/p>\n Brunson could recoup that lost money on his next contract as he looks to cash in on the Knicks’ 2026 title run.<\/p>\n