{"id":873414,"date":"2026-06-17T11:29:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T11:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/873414\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T11:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T11:29:16","slug":"i-did-not-see-that-coming-dirk-nowitzki-talks-brunson-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/873414\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I did not see that coming’: Dirk Nowitzki talks Brunson, NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

No, not Dirk Nowitzki and\u00a0Luka Doncic<\/a> in this case. It would actually be Nowitzki and Jalen Brunson, who Dallas picked in the second round of the 2018 NBA draft. The Mavs’ all-time leading scorer played his final NBA season in 2018-19 alongside the eventual NBA Finals<\/a> MVP.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I\u00a0gotta say, I did not see that coming. I didn’t think he would be a Finals MVP one day, so really happy for him,” Nowitzki said.<\/p>\n

“The whole crew, actually of Knicks, very likable, extremely hard working, and the grit and experience came through. It was amazing to watch.”<\/p>\n

Brunson, of course, left Dallas in the summer of 2022<\/a>, when he signed a four-year, $104 million free-agent contract with New York. In 2024, he signed a 4-year, $157 million extension, leaving $113 million on the table so the franchise could pursue other pieces.<\/p>\n

Nowitzki believes Brunson’s play in the Finals\u00a0made him worth every penny of those deals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I was a little worried for him going to the Knicks, getting that contract, being a franchise player in that media market. I can say it now, I was a little worried for him,” Nowitzki said.<\/p>\n

“But the way he shouldered that, being clutch, making all those tough shots, I was super happy for him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No, not Dirk Nowitzki and\u00a0Luka Doncic in this case. It would actually be Nowitzki and Jalen Brunson, who…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":873415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[1260,62,328838,349118,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-873414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-tp-dallas-mavericks","tag-tp-dirk-nowitzki","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116765220523781499","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}