The annu­al NBA spend-a-palooza begins 6 p.m. on Thurs­day, with the Knicks, again, estab­lished as big play­ers after clear­ing rough­ly $30 mil­lion in cap space over the last week.

Leon Rose’s for­ay into big-time spend­ing was a big-time dis­as­ter last year, when the Knicks hitched their mon­ey to Kem­ba Walk­er, Evan Fournier, Ner­lens Noel, Der­rick Rose and Alec Burks. Three of those five are already off the team, trad­ed with the neces­si­ty of draft cap­i­tal attached, while anoth­er – Rose — hasn’t played since pre-Christmas.

The rea­son for such moves is most­ly about Jalen Brun­son, which we’ll break down below with three impor­tant ques­tions for the NYK head­ing into Thursday.

IS BRUNSON WORTH IT?

At this point, it’s fait accom­pli that the Knicks will offer Brun­son a mon­ster con­tract to be their lead guard. The only thing that could derail the sign­ing is the Mav­er­icks offer­ing more while exer­cis­ing his Bird Rights, but reports out of Dal­las sug­gest Mark Cuban is unwill­ing to go that high. Still, Brun­son has sched­uled free agent meet­ings in New York City with three teams — the Knicks, Mav­er­icks and Heat — accord­ing to Yahoo Sports. Brun­son may have stayed in Dal­las at $125 mil­lion, but Cuban has thus far offered only $106 mil­lion, a league source told the Dai­ly News.

The Mavs own­er would also have heavy lux­u­ry tax penal­ties to pay if he signs Brun­son, and Spencer Dinwiddie’s acqui­si­tion last sea­son makes the point guard some­what dispensable.

The Knicks offer? A report­ed four years and rough­ly $110 million.

Their log­ic is easy to defend. The Knicks, as wit­nessed the last two decades, need a depend­able point guard. Brun­son, despite his flaws (more on that lat­er), is the top one avail­able in free agency after Kyrie Irv­ing dis­cov­ered he’s trust­ed by no teams in the NBA, espe­cial­ly his own in Brooklyn.

You might argue that the Knicks are bet­ter off trad­ing for San Antonio’s Dejounte Mur­ray or Indiana’s Mal­colm Brog­don — who are both upgrades defen­sive­ly — but the Knicks are first focused on Brunson.

As wide­ly dis­persed, the orga­ni­za­tion has famil­ial ties to Brun­son that raise eye­brows. His father, Rick, was hired as an assis­tant coach under Tom Thi­bodeau. Rick was also the first NBA client of Rose, the for­mer agent who now runs the Knicks and recent­ly attend­ed Rick’s 50th birth­day party.

Rose’s son, Sam, became an agent and rep­re­sents Jalen Brunson.

It sets up a defin­ing moment of the Leon Rose regime, which will be play out based on Brunson’s pro­duc­tion. If he strug­gles, Rose will have manip­u­lat­ed James Dolan’s mon­ey to take care of his peo­ple. Think Brodie Van Wage­nen. Or, if Brun­son suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gates the Knicks back to their 2020–21 sta­tus, Rose will be laud­ed for his con­nec­tions and insight into an over­looked star.

Brun­son, accord­ing to a source, is viewed by at least one high-rank­ing mem­ber of the Knicks as a top-10 NBA point guard. It’s a rea­son­able assess­ment, but hard­ly a giv­en that will trans­late to NYK with­out the spac­ing pro­vid­ed by the Mav­er­icks sys­tem and personnel.

He’s a proven win­ner (two-time NCAA cham­pi­on) and a depend­able per­son­al­i­ty, which is sig­nif­i­cant for a fran­chise that seems per­pet­u­al­ly unsta­ble. Brun­son pro­vides some­thing the Knicks back­court has sore­ly missed – a facil­i­ta­tor and play­mak­er who can cre­ate shots for him­self and thrive with ball screens.

His defense is sus­pect, how­ev­er. Oppos­ing teams often tar­get­ed Brun­son, who isn’t an elite ath­lete, which makes a back­court with Evan Fournier trou­bling, espe­cial­ly with Tom Thibodeau’s defen­sive demands.

There’s also the unknown of adding usage to Brunson’s game with­out Luka Don­cic dom­i­nat­ing the ball and atten­tion. He han­dled that well dur­ing Doncic’s absences last sea­son, espe­cial­ly in the play­offs, when Brun­son led the Mav­er­icks to two vic­to­ries over the Jazz while aver­ag­ing 36 points.

With that being said, Brun­son, by him­self, isn’t viewed as a road to instant con­tention. Much of his val­ue will be attached to turn­ing the Knicks from a dis­ap­point­ment into a desir­able des­ti­na­tion for a true superstar.

WILL MITCHELL ROBINSON RE-SIGN?

Trad­ing Ner­lens Noel on Tues­day set up anoth­er like­ly sce­nario: the return of Robinson.

It’s anoth­er gam­ble for the Knicks, but for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. Robin­son, who’ll be an unre­strict­ed free agent if he doesn’t sign an exten­sion by Thursday’s dead­line, has been an effi­cient scor­er and rim pro­tec­tor but also an injury risk who has inter­mit­tent­ly grumped about his role and fall­en out of shape.

Robin­son, 24, was vast­ly under­paid dur­ing his first four sea­sons in the NBA, and many won­der what a big guar­an­teed pay­day will do to his motivation.

Accord­ing to Bleach­er Report, Robin­son is expect­ed to sign with the Knicks for four years and approx­i­mate­ly $60 mil­lion. That’s a 1,000% raise from his pre­vi­ous deal.

Still, the Knicks can’t lose Robin­son for noth­ing after draft­ing and devel­op­ing him for four years.

He’s their best option at cen­ter. Plus, on a team most­ly devoid of engag­ing and fun per­son­al­i­ties the last two sea­sons, Robin­son was a shin­ing light.

WHAT ABOUT RJ BARRETT’S EXTENSION?

The Knicks’ best young play­er becomes eli­gi­ble for an exten­sion Fri­day but there’s no rush. The sides have until the sea­son open­er to reach an agree­ment, and, if a deal isn’t struck, they can rene­go­ti­ate next sum­mer when Bar­rett hits restrict­ed free agency.

Sense around the NBA is Bar­rett will ask for the max, worth a pro­ject­ed $185 mil­lion over five years. Whether he gets that is a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. If Bar­rett doesn’t, things might get messy.

The big hole in Barrett’s argu­ment for max mon­ey is his effi­cien­cy, which ranks among the low­est in the NBA for such a high usage rate. Only two weeks removed from his 22nd birth­day, it’s rea­son­able to expect improve­ments in Barrett’s free-throw and 3‑point per­cent­ages. The ath­leti­cism, or lack of burst, isn’t chang­ing. He’s strong to score in tran­si­tion with run­ning room but Barrett’s not going to break defend­ers down in the halfcourt.

He’s a rel­a­tive­ly low-main­te­nance per­son­al­i­ty who enjoys the spot­light of the Knicks, and we may dis­cov­er if that trans­lates to play­ing the third fid­dle on a bet­ter team.

Then there’s the his­to­ry of this heart­break­ing fran­chise and its draft picks, the sta­tis­tic that incap­su­lates its inep­ti­tude of the last two-plus decades: No Knicks first-round pick has resigned with the team off his rook­ie deal since Char­lie Ward, who is so old he played two sports (and four years) in college.

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