The New York Knicks won the 2026 NBA title thanks in no small part to star point guard Jalen Brunson choosing to take a massive pay cut to extend his stay with the team. On the heels of the Los Angeles Clippers getting hammered by the NBA for cap circumvention, some NBA fans are wondering if the Knicks did the same with Brunson and could be next on the agenda.
In the days since Clippers owner Steve Ballmer was hit with a $30 million fine while his team was stripped of an unprecedented five first-round draft picks along with other sanctions, NBA fans have been practically foaming at the mouth to see which NBA star and team Pulitzer-winning journalist Pablo Torre goes after next. The name being thrown around the most is Brunson.
For context, in 2024, Brunson signed a four-year, $156.5 million contract extension instead of waiting an extra year and potentially cash in on a five-year deal worth $265 million. Brunson effectively left an extra $100 million on the table and allowed the Knicks front office to pick up the pieces that would form the core of their 2026 championship team, which ended the franchise’s 53-year title drought.
But multiple outlets have reported that Torre is not conducting any sort of investigation into the Knicks or Brunson. As far back as September of last year he stated point-blank that he doesn’t see enough similarities between Brunson’s situation and what the Clippers did with Kawhi Leonard.
“What I suspect happened with Jalen Brunson is fundamentally different from what’s happened with Aspiration,” Torre said in 2025. “I don’t have proof it happened. All I have is the theory I laid out…
“If someone gave me a tip and said, ‘Look into this,’ and I found something, I’d follow it to the logical conclusion,” he said. “But right now, all I have is theory.”
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Core Differences Between the Situations
On Friday, SNY’s Knicks reporter Ian Begley further explained why there isn’t nearly as much similarity as fans want to assert there is. Begley explained that the core difference is that the Clippers reportedly paid Kawhi under the table to ensure he stayed with the team at a price they could afford under salary cap rules, while Brunson willing left the money on the table for the sake of letting the front office build a championship contender. Begley asserted that Brunson gambled on himself and can expect to receive an even bigger deal when he’s up for another extension.
“Seeing misinformed Jalen Brunson/Knicks talk in aftermath of Kawhi/LAC penalties talk. As a reminder: Jalen Brunson signed a max extension in 2024. If you compare it to max deal he could’ve signed as a free agent, Brunson left $37M on the table (details below). Leonard, per NBA report, received money outside of traditional salary cap payments as part of his first deal with LAC. Brunson was already in NY when he signed extension. (He came to NY after signing a much-maligned 4-year, $104M deal).
“At the risk of (Pablo Torre) calling me a team-friendly beat reporter, I’ll say confidently that Brunson signed his max extension with the intent to give Knicks more financial flexibility and he will be paid handsomely when he signs his next max extension with NY. So it’s silly/misguided to make any comparison to Kawhi/LAC. If I end up being wrong, feel free to come after me over this… But I don’t think Brunson has a side deal with the Las Vegas Sphere. There’s no smoking gun here.”
The irony of the whole situation is that the Kawhi gave the Clippers a fake discount and the team never made it past the conference finals with him.
By contrast, Brunson gave the Knicks a bonafide team discount and is now hailed as the greatest New York athlete of this generation.
