There was a moment Tuesday at Lincoln Park in Queens, as shared by the ubiquitary Knicks fan X account @NBA_NewYork, when a street-ball announcer addressed Jalen Brunson, who was seated courtside.
“You wait until 2025, that’s three-hundo,” he shouted on the mic.
The other announcer chimed in.
“He ain’t panicking, he’s got time. … We know how to count, JB. One-fifty or three-hundo?”
The numbers were a tad off and more complicated than presented, but the announcer’s point was easy to understand.
Beginning Friday, Brunson is eligible to sign a four-year max extension worth $156.5 million.
If he waits until free agency next summer instead, Brunson can sign for approximately $270 million over five years.
Put another way: One-fifty or three-hundo?
On the surface, it’s a no-brainer.
Brunson is “crazy” if he takes the extension, as an NBA agent texted recently.
But there are nuances and long-term math to consider.
As a source said during last season — which was before Brunson’s star power rose during the playoffs — the extension is fully under consideration.
There’s been nothing reported or heard since to suggest Brunson has removed it from the table.
As The Post explained in April, there’s security with a contract in hand and it’s hard to imagine a better location for Brunson than New York.
His dad is an assistant coach, his longtime family friend/agent is the president, his college buddies are teammates and the city is smitten with the point guard.
There hasn’t been a Knick with a higher approval rating since Patrick Ewing’s honeymoon phase.
There’s also the idea, though mostly hypothetical at this point, that Brunson signing at a discount provides the Knicks with flexibility to build out a championship roster.
And it’s impossible to put a price on the legacy — or long-term value — associated with breaking a 50-plus year title drought in NYC, especially if Brunson’s play and his financial sacrifice paved the way.
“The thing I love about him,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau has stated repeatedly about Brunson, “is that he is all about the team. All he cares about is winning.”
But there are discounts — like the one Carmelo Anthony took in 2014 ($5 million less than the $129 million max) or LeBron James agreed upon this month ($3 million short of the $104 million max) — and there are massive underpays like the extension Brunson would have to sign.
His annual salary in the extension, which would start with the 2025-26 season, averages $39.1 million.
That’s $3.9 million less than the average salary of OG Anunoby, Brunson’s role-playing teammate.
Forgoing the extension and signing in free agency could net Brunson an average salary of roughly $54 million.
Big difference.
But again, it’s not the entire financial picture.
Signing the extension would be both a safe move and a gamble on himself.
Assuming it includes an opt-out that allows Brunson to hit free agency in 2028, the point guard would be eligible for a veteran’s max that year starting at 35 percent of the salary cap as opposed to the regular max he’d sign in 2025 at 30 percent of the cap.
It’s a perk of being in the league for at least 10 years (Brunson was drafted in 2018).
Under those circumstances, the difference in overall salary from 2025 to 2030 is only $6 million less via the extension route, as calculated by The Athletic.
The difference is much greater, however, if Brunson signs consecutive max contracts in free agency (that would reap an estimated $560 million for Brunson from 2025 to 2032, much more than the extension-to-free agency path).
So whether it’s the one-fifty or three-hundo — or it’s projecting longer-term numbers exceeding a half-billion — an extension for Brunson represents a team-friendly contract and another big assist from the All-NBA point guard.
Starting Friday, the Knicks can officially offer it to Brunson — which they will — and hope he signs.
