Jalen Brunson has been the Knicks‘ best player since he arrived in 2022, but there is still some debate on whether he’s good enough to be the best player on a championship team. On Saturday after a blowout loss to the Bucks, Josh Hart addressed the ongoing debate and refused to give any credence to the idea of Brunson being nothing more than a glorified sidekick in the NBA.
“People are gonna say stupid s— all they want,” said Hart. “At the end of the day, the beauty about him, he doesn’t care about what other people say. He cares about winning and he cares about success.”
This month, the Brunson conversation took on a life of its own after Aces coach Becky Hammon said that he is not a Tier-A superstar in the NBA and the Knicks could not win a title with him as their best player. The Knicks disagree with that sentiment for now but until Brunson pulls off a successful playoff run, there will always be doubts about his status as an NBA elite.
NBA Basketball Favors The Bigs
Becky Hammon was forced to defend herself from the backlash for her words on Brunson, but was she actually wrong in anything she said? At 6’2″, Brunson is a small guard and guys like that rarely win a title as the best player on their team. Stephen Curry and Isiah Thomas are a few notable exceptions but NBA history shows us that wings and big men have an undeniable advantage at the highest levels of play.
The bigger, stronger, and taller a player is, the more of an impact they can make defensively and the harder they are to guard for the opposition. In the case of Jalen Brunson, he’s obviously an All-Star with the Knicks with an average of 25.3 points per game this season. But there’s a reason why they lost in the Conference Semis last spring and they may struggle to build on that this year after running it back with the same exact roster.
New York Knicks Are One Star Away
With some impressive wins over the Lakers, Nets, and Suns recently the Knicks have shown that they are a top-six team in the East this season and Brunson is on pace for his best campaign yet as the head of the Knicks offense. Even so, with Brunson, Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson, and RJ Barrett, New York lacks the kind of player that can flip a series in their favor.
This season, look for the Knicks to continue their hunt for star power and their search could take them in various directions. In Chicago, two stars (Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan) are up for grabs and could provide a major boost to the rotation. Dejounte Murray is apparently another potential option. Of course, there’s also the situation with Donovan Mitchell, who could be on the verge of an exit from the Cavaliers. Those players may still not be good enough to make the Knicks championship favorites but it would certainly get them closer to being a legitimate title threat for the next few years to come.
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