Knicks Say NBA Is Out to Get Them After Latest League Probe

This summer, Jalen Brunson essentially gave the Knicks a nine-figure discount by agreeing to a four-year, $156 million extension instead of waiting a year to sign a five-year, $270 million deal. In the same offseason, the team promoted Jalen’s father, Rick, a longtime NBA coach, to its lead assistant role after Johnnie Bryant left for the Cavaliers.

The NBA is apparently investigating whether Rick Brunson’s promotion was an illegal benefit to the Brunson family, and the Knicks took that personally. Before any story was even published, MSG Sports issued a statement Monday night.

The team accused the league of retaliatory “harassment” before SNY published its story that the NBA has been “poking around” about Rick’s promotion.

The NBA previously docked the Knicks a second-round pick after the team was found guilty of tampering with Jalen Brunson, when he first signed with them as a free agent in 2022. 

“Brunson took Johnnie Bryant’s place and assumed the same salary as Bryant,” MSG Sports said in a statement. “It’s offensive that anyone would claim Rick didn’t deserve the promotion, Rick has done a tremendous job and will continue to do so. We see this as more harassment of the Knicks due to our opposition to certain NBA matters.”

An NBA spokesperson did not initially respond to a request for comment about the Knicks’ statement or the reported investigation. 

Rick Brunson has been an NBA assistant for head coach Tom Thibodeau for multiple teams before joining him in New York, including the Bulls and Timberwolves, making him a highly qualified candidate for lead assistant. His first NBA coaching job came in 2007, when Jalen was just 11 years old. Both Brunsons joined the Knicks in 2022.

Knicks owner James Dolan has become a thorn in the side of the league office in recent years, which is what the statement is referring to with “to our opposition to certain NBA matters.”

In 2023, the team sued the Raptors alleging a former video coordinator stole scouting reports, data, and confidential information when he left the team to work for Toronto. The same year, Dolan resigned from the advisory, finance, and media committees he sits on with the NBA board of governors. In June of this year, a federal judge ruled the matter needs to be handled by commissioner Adam Silver, who the lawsuit accuses of favoritism toward Raptors owner Larry Tanenbaum.

“Among other things, Tanenbaum has been described as ‘a close ally of Commissioner Adam Silver,’” the Knicks wrote in a November 2023 filing. “Silver himself described Tanenbaum as ‘not just my boss as the chairman of the board of governors, but he’s very much a role model in my life.’ If Silver were to preside over the instant dispute, he would be arbitrating a case for his boss and ally.”

The beef spilled into the WNBA, when Knicks owner Dolan was the lone owner to vote against expansion after Toronto was named the WNBA’s 14th team and will start play in 2026. In addition to co-owning the Raptors, Tanenbaum will be the majority owner of the new WNBA franchise.

Dolan has also complained to Silver about the WNBA continuing to lose money, according to the New York Post. 

“There’s a bunch of owners who see Dolan as their hero for pressing Silver on these questions but Silver is not giving us any answers,” an anonymous NBA team executive told the Post. 

In July, Dolan sent his fellow NBA owners a letter that blasts the league’s new media-rights deal a day before a board of governors meeting to vote on the deal. Dolan believed the new deal would hurt teams—like the Knicks—with successful regional networks.

“The NBA has made the move to an NFL model — deemphasizing and depowering the local market,” Dolan wrote in his letter. “Soon, your only revenue concern will be the sale of tickets and what color next year’s jersey will be. Don’t worry, because due to revenue pooling, you are guaranteed to be neither a success nor a failure.

“Of course, to get there, the league must take down the successful franchises and redistribute to the less successful. This new media deal goes a long way to accomplishing that goal.”