As Jalen Brunson walked into the interview room with a trophy under each arm, he asked the media a question:
“Do I be myself or do I talk my sh–??” he said.
Brunson was joking. Of course, he was going to choose the former. This is the Knicks’ version of Derek Jeter. He rarely creates headlines outside of his play. He lets others do the talking.
Brunson, who had just led the Knicks to their first championship in 53 years with a legendary 45-point outburst, knew the question was coming, if he had a response to all those who doubted, criticized and questioned him.
Those who said he was too small to be the leader of a championship team, those who questioned the Knicks for that initial four-year, $104 million contract.
“I didn’t respond to them then,” Brunson said, “and I’m damn sure not going to respond to them now.”
Even as Brunson established himself as a star in recent years, making the Knicks matter after so many years of irrelevance, there were talking heads that questioned how far he could take the Knicks. The most outspoken one was Becky Hammon, the current head coach of the Las Vegas Aces.
During a December 2023 episode of NBA Today, Hammon said the Knicks lacked a “1A dude,” and listed contenders who struggled to reach the top of the sport being led by smaller guards.
“He’s too small,” she said then. “If your best player is small, you’re not winning.”
Last month, she revisited those comments, and said the two best teams were “probably” in the Western Conference. Hammon did say, “I’m up for being proven wrong.”
Perhaps an apology is in order, because she was in fact proven dead wrong. So was Warriors forward Draymond Green, who made similar comments. He said the Knicks lacked a “bonafide 1A” and “until they have that, I think it’s going to be very tough to win a championship.”
Brunson not only led the Knicks to a title, but a dominant postseason. They went 16-3, and he was named the MVP of the finals. In the playoffs, he averaged 28.4 points, 6.1 assists and 3.2 rebounds. He scored at least 30 points nine different times, and in four of the five games in the finals.
He put the Knicks on his back in two of the greatest postseason comebacks in recent memory, rallying them from 22 points down in the fourth quarter of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Cavaliers followed by that 29-point comeback in Game 4 of the finals.
He became the fifth player to win a national title in college and Naismith Player of the Year award, along with an NBA crown and be named the NBA Finals MVP. The others: Michael Jordan, Bill Walton, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Not bad for a little guard who isn’t a “1A.”
“That’s a testament to who he is, and just his story, never giving up, always being the underdog, always being looked down upon,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “It only takes one person to believe in you. This organization believed in him, and we believed in him.
“We were going to do whatever it took to get him to the next level.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
