The NBA playoffs are in full swing, and some teams have advanced in the first round of the playoffs, but some teams are still playing hot. There were a total of three games in the East today, and the 76ers vs. Knicks game in the three games attracted a lot of fans' attention, after all, the Knicks Three Musketeers have indeed become one of the focus of the league this year. There were two people who scored more than 40 points in this game, the 76ers' Maxey personally cut 46 points, 5 rebounds and 9 assists, and the Knicks' Brunson scored 40 points, 3 rebounds and 6 assists today.
This season, the Knicks have clearly become a dark horse team in the East, they played the third record in the East in the regular season, and they are currently leading the 76ers by a large score of 3:2 in the playoffs. The reason why the Knicks have made such rapid progress depends on the play of the star Brunson. Brunson is currently leading the league in points per game in the playoffs. He averaged 34.4 points and 8.4 assists per game. It is under his leadership that the Knicks are currently a powerhouse in the East.
When we talk about Brunson, we have to think back to his previous time with the Mavericks, which was probably the trade that Cuban regretted the most. Brunson was a rookie selected by the Mavericks, having been drafted by the Mavericks with the third pick in the second round in 2018. He spent the first four seasons of his career with the Mavericks. In his final season with the Mavericks, he averaged 16.3 points, 3.9 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game, and at that time he was already showing the embryonic form of a star.
In the final year, Brunson was very eager to renew his contract with the Mavericks, after all, he chose his parent team. But Mavericks management has no intention of renewing his contract. Brunson wanted a four-year, $55 million contract. However, he was rejected twice by the Mavericks, and finally Brunson chose to leave the Mavericks and join the Knicks. And the contract he signed for joining the Knicks was only 104 million for four years, equivalent to an annual salary of more than $20 million. But now Brunson has grown into a superstar in the league. He is currently fully deserving of a contract with a maximum salary. The Knicks have picked up a big bargain.
Just imagine if the Mavericks chose to keep Brunson with an extremely cheap contract, and now Brunson plays such a good performance and only accounts for more than 10 million of the annual salary. The Mavericks still have a lot of room to sign strong players. In that way, the current combat power of the Mavericks will definitely become stronger. Although the Mavericks also have a very strong scoring second-in-command team after they have Irving, Irving currently occupies a lot of salary space. If they had chosen to keep Brunson back then, they would have saved at least 30 million in salary space to sign other stars, and even now the Mavericks could form a Big Three lineup.
So now every time Brunson returns to the Mavericks' home court, maybe Cuban will regret it. What he's missing is a superstar, and Brunson is only 27 years old this year. His peak is just beginning.