It turns out the Knicks bid against themselves for Brandon Jennings
Little about Brandon Jennings’ basketball career has been conventional.
He became the first American to make the leap directly from high school to the professional level in Europe, foregoing Division I scholarship offers to spend his one-and-done year in Italy, and then captured 2009-10 NBA All-Rookie First Team honors as the 10th overall pick by Milwaukee. Jennings started all 82 games, averaging 15.5 points, 5.7 assists and 3.4 rebounds for a Bucks team that won 46 games and nearly upset the No. 3 seed in the playoffs. One could argue that remains his best season.
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Since then, his below-average shooting and careless ball-handling led the Bucks to trade him to the Pistons in 2013 for Brandon Knight and (gulp) Khris Middleton. Just as he was finding his footing in Detroit, leading a remarkable post-Christmas turnaround, he ruptured his left Achilles tendon in January 2015. It was the beginning of the end of his tenure on the Pistons, who dealt him a year later for (gulp) Tobias Harris from Orlando, where he played out the rest of a subpar recovery campaign.
And little about Phil Jackson’s executive career has been conventional.
After winning 11 NBA championships as the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls, Jackson’s first order of business as New York Knicks team president was to hire Derek Fisher in 2014. He then signed Carmelo Anthony to a $124 million max contract and traded still-capable former Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler for six pieces who wouldn’t be on the team in two years. The result was an unmitigated disaster that resulted in a 17-win season and the No. 4 overall pick.
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Since then, Jackson drafted Kristaps Porzingis(!), signed Robin Lopez, traded Lopez for Derrick Rose and gave 31-year-old, oft-injured center Joakim Noah a $73 million deal. It’s been quite a whirlwind.
So goes the preamble of how Jennings and Jackson crossed paths this past July. Now 27 years old, Jennings was looking for a fresh start, and the 71-year-old Jackson was in need of a backup point guard to Rose, since the Knicks were unwilling to exceed $3 million for incumbent Langston Galloway.
This, via a New York Newsday Q&A with Jennings, probably didn’t come up at the negotiating table:
Q: What other teams were interested in you?
Jennings: “Actually I didn’t get any offers from any other team but New York. A lot was because of my Achilles, nobody knew how healthy I was and things like that. I definitely put in the time this summer, lost a lot of weight. I made sure I was ready. When Phil (Jackson) called, I was like ‘Yo, I’m coming.’ It was a no-brainer … Shoot, I would have come here for a million. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to be in an NBA uniform and be somewhere where I had a chance to win, and New York City — why not?”
Q: Do you feel like you have something to prove?
Jennings: “I definitely do. It was 29 teams that didn’t want me so I definitely have a chip on my shoulder, and I definitely want to prove to everybody that I’m back and I’m healthy and I’m just a team player.”
That’s right. Phil called, Brandon said, “Yo, I’m coming,” and the Knicks bid against themselves to sign a player who would have taken the $1.3 million veteran minimum to a one-year, $5 million contract.
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That’s not to say Jennings won’t earn his salary. While his preseason production in Rose’s absence (four assists against two turnovers and 6.8 points per game on a 39.3 true shooting percentage) doesn’t suggest he’s a different player, there are those who believe he could be “one of the NBA’s most underrated signings this summer.” Either way, Jennings is pretty pumped about his new deal.
But it’s very Knicks-ian to pay a player no other team wanted four times more than he would’ve taken.
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Ben Rohrbach is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
