KnicksTape

The Cubes is upset. He should be on a boat with Chris Daughtry, Jeff Probst, super-chef Bobby Flay, and Derek catching Bonita fish. Instead he’s getting taken behind the woodshed by Leon Rose.

Personally, I’m sick of Mark Cuban’s mini self-righteous media tour about Jalen Brunson’s free agency. Not since he decided to forgo investing in the Scrub Daddy has this guy made more poor management decisions, and now it seems like he’s just projecting that onto the Knicks/Rick Brunson. For the uninitiated, Cuban had an unannounced press conference the other day where, after being eliminated from the playoffs, he went on a rant about how they were going to keep Brunson until “parents got involved.” This is obviously the ramblings of a man who just traded a first round pick to the Nets for Jelly Fam Alex Jones, but it is also just a stupid thing to say for a multitude of reasons. Let’s break this thang down point by point.

• The first and most obvious point is that the Mavs had a million chances to sign Brunson and just didn’t. Every NBA reporter and Jalen Brunson himself has said that he was willing to sign to a $56M contract in early 2022, but they waited until after he was the second best player on their WCF squad to offer anything. Sure, no one could have anticipated 2 seasons ago what Brunson would be become, but he clearly had promise, enjoyed Dallas, and was willing to sign a contract that would put him as roughly the 100th highest paid player in the NBA (according to ESPN, it’d put him between Doug McDermott and KCP). So next time when someone wants to play for your team at massive discount, and you indirectly tell him to piss off, don’t blame us when he gets really good and wants to play elsewhere.

• Now for Cuban’s main point: Jalen was going to resign until “parents got involved” and only signed with the Knicks because they hired his dad, Rick. My initial response to this is… Okay? Imagine that, Mark: a 26 year old about to make the largest financial and career decision of his life might want to consult his parents about it?? I can’t imagine that. Next thing you’re going to do is tell me that he may want to go somewhere that takes care of his family and allows him to be close to them. Oh, shocker, the Knicks provided that so he chose them over the team that declined to resign him at half price the prior season. It’s also worth noting that Leon Rose is Jalen’s godfather and Cuban was implying there was some funny business going on there too. First, I can promise you that James Dolan didn’t hire Leon with the idea of tampering with Brunson, who was a backup averaging 8 PPG at the time. Second, is Cuban shocked that someone wants to go into business and work everyday with people that they get along with? NBA players choose to play with their friends all the time, or will chose cities to play in based on their families, so I don’t know why this is such a crazy thought. Hell, I’ve seen Cuban make decisions on Shark Tank based on how much he likes the guy giving the presentation. If Cuban can decide to invest 10 million because he likes some fast-talking schmuck selling cigarettes for cats, I’m unsure why he’s surprised that Brunson will make a decision because he likes his dad and godfather.

• This last point is going to be less about responding to what Cuban said, and more about what I think is also playing a factor. The Mavs and Knicks have been oddly linked for a while now. If you really break it down, it’s pretty surprising how many often their fates have been aligned the last decade or so:
  • After the Mavs won the 2011 LeChoke Finals, they lost Tyson Chandler and JKidd to the Knicks. Tyson ended up winning DPOY and both helped lead us to our best season since the 90s while the Mav’s championship roster collapsed.
  • Eventually we were both back in the same spot, and picked Franky Smokes and Dennis Smith Jr back to back in 2017. Remarkably, both these dudes were the definition of mid but somehow found themselves on the opposite teams like 3 years later. (Max Kellerman “Martians have the death beam on earth” question: would you rather have Mav’s Frank or Knick’s DSJ take the shot? I’d probably jump out my window to get it over with)
  • Tim Hardaway Jr got passed around like a blunt between us, but somehow only managed to be good on the Mavs.
  • We traded them a decrepit Kristaps Porzingis and other salaries, and used that space to sign Julius and more or less build the team we have today. Still unsure why Cuban thought Kristaps would be an automatic fit next to Luka. I can only imagine he thought they were from the same country since he, along with most NBA media people, think that “Balkan” and “Baltic” are the same thing.
  • They gave us DeAndre Jordan, who should have been arrested for crimes against basketball, and ended up telling best buddies KD and Kyrie to not come to the Knicks. Ultimate example of “task failed successfully.”
  • I’m not even sure if I can list all the mutual players we’ve had in the last 5 years. We’ve mentioned KP, Frank, DSJ, Chandler, THJ, and DeAndre Jordan’s corpse but you also have some of the most random names imaginable: Courtney Lee, Trey Burke, Wesley Matthew, Reggie Bullock, and Theo Pinson, just to name a few.
• The point of all this is to say that the Knicks and Mavs have had a lot in common in past years. From Cuban’s stand point, they’ve had about 3 high profile trades or FA situations between them and the Knicks, but the Knick’s have won all of them. We root for team that has been historically very easy to fleece, and yet Mark Cuban himself is batting .000. So do I think that Cuban is losing sleep over giving up too much for Theo Pinson? No I do not. But do I think all of these small transactions added up, culminated with Brunson, and he’s pissed that he keeps losing to James Dolan? Yes I do.

I think that about covers all the angles of this Cuban temper tantrum. Overall, he hasn’t looked this goofy and spineless since Richard Branson threw a cup of water on his face. The important thing to note is that none of this would be happening if Brunson wasn’t an All-Pro (or should be) while the Mavs SUCK. Cuban knows that it’s virtually unheard of to have a top 5 player in their prime and miss the playoffs. The worst he looks, the more likely it is he loses Luka in a few years, and I guess he thinks Rick Brunson is a good scape goat. I have my doubts.