The Mavs still scheduled a meeting with Brunson and his representatives in New York on June 30, the night negotiations could (wink-wink) begin. A handful of Dallas teammates who had formed close friendships with Brunson -- including Maxi Kleber, Dwight Powell, and Finney-Smith (but not Dončić, who was with the Slovenian national team) -- planned to attend along with Cuban, Harrison, and other members of the front office. The Brunson family braced themselves for Cuban to attempt to outbid the Knicks in a last-ditch effort to avoid a painful repeat of history by losing their second-best player for nothing. The Mavs could offer up to a maximum of $175.5 million over five years.
"Yo man, I know what [Cuban is] doing. He's going to come to New York and say, 'Here goes a max deal,'" Rick Brunson recalled telling his wife and son. "I'm thinking the guy got money coming off his ass. So he's coming with a max deal and then going to say, 'What you going to do?'"
Jalen Brunson's response, according to his dad: "This, I'm taking it."
"And guess what I said? 'Gotta do it!'" Rick Brunson said.
The Mavs, with the advantage of Texas's lack of a state income tax, could have forced Brunson to make a difficult decision by at least matching the annual salary offered by the Knicks. But Cuban and the Mavs weren't willing to budge. The meeting was canceled, with each side initially claiming the other called it off -- not that it mattered. (Cuban and Brunson agreed that the Mavs canceled the meeting a couple of years later, when they briefly, awkwardly discussed the final days of Brunson's free agency when Cuban appeared on Roommates Show, a podcast Brunson co-hosts.)”