HALLELUKA: Luka Clinches All-NBA 1st team. 4th in 5 years

[KillerLeft]

The reporting universally is that the Mavs were never given the opportunity to give a final offer.

No, that's your interpretation of what was reported. Mine was (and is) that all parties involved knew what the offers on the table were, and that the dollar amounts weren't changing (which was the most explicitly reported thing of all). That "last minute meeting" and the subsequent announcement that they weren't happening, always rang odd to me, as though it was a simple matter of misreporting and then correction from the people who matter (Brunson's team). But, my take was that if it was real in the first place, it was just going to be a dog and pony show to make Brunson feel "wanted" (at VanVleet money, of course, because THAT was clear reporting). 

Rightly, Brunson told them where they could shove that nonsense.

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The ship had sailed. The Mavs had already screwed things up in the years prior. It was too late.

I can do this, too, watch:

If the Mavs had offered a bigger contract than NY, Brunson might still be here. At the very least, NY would've had to raise their offer. A max contract offer would've been better than losing him for nothing, and it's so stupid that they offered less than NY. We'll never know how that might've changed things, and saying otherwise is silly.