The Best Knick of the Last 25 Seasons Is...

No surprise here.

Good Morning! Drumroll please…

25 for 25: No. 1 - Jalen Brunson

When I first thought of this 25 for 25 idea several months ago, I did so mostly out of necessity. I knew that I’d be moving this summer and that finding time to write wouldn’t always be easy, so I wanted to pre-write as many newsletters as possible ahead of time to buy myself some leeway.

The plan went largely as intended, and I penned most of these tributes before the end of June. Other times, I’d start writing about a player but realize I wasn’t in the right headspace to give him his due, and I’d go back and finish later. There was only one player whose 25 for 25 piece I never attempted until just before it was time to go out:

The one you’re reading.

I don’t have a great reason for holding off on writing the Brunson piece until now. I always intended to put him number one on the list, although I’ll admit there were a few times over the last several months that I wondered whether Melo was getting shortchanged. Anthony played over 200 more games in a Knick uniform than Jalen has, and while Brunson has two more playoff wins than Carmelo has playoff games played in blue and orange, definitively slotting JB ahead of Anthony strikes me as being a bit of a prisoner of the moment.

After all, you’d be hard pressed to find many New York athletes in the last 50 years who ever generated a comparable approval rating to the one Brunson currently boasts, and with the exception of Don Mattingly and Aaron Judge, they’ve all won titles in their respective sports.

That he is currently ringless hasn’t mattered to fans, at least not yet. Then again, he’s only been here for three years, and each of those seasons has marked a significant step up in weight class for both him and the team.

In year one, Jalen established himself as someone who could be the best player on a very good NBA team, and the Knicks won their first playoff series in a decade.

In year two, he entered the outskirts of the MVP conversation and a rash of injuries were all that prevented New York from making the conference finals.

And then last year, the Knicks officially vaulted themselves into the inner circle of title contenders behind Brunson, the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year who became the first Knick in over three decades to make All-NBA 2nd Team or higher in back to back seasons.

Even with that resume, there were a few moments last year when you might have expected the armor to show some cracks. Brunson’s on court chemistry with KAT that started off so promising eventually deteriorated, to the point where Mitchell Robinson became a far more effective pick and roll partner. Relatedly, the offense began to sputter over a two-month stretch, and then actually seemed to find some cohesion when Brunson was sidelined for 15 games.

In the playoffs, there were moments of ball-hoggery against Detroit, his ill-fated pass to OG Anunoby under the basket during the Game 1 meltdown, and then a poor Game 6 against the Pacers. Much like in the regular season, the playoff data pointed to him, and not Towns, as the culprit behind New York’s defensive struggles.

Through it all, Brunson has beaten the charges more frequently than John Gotti in the ‘80’s. Going into year four, Captain Clutch is arguably the most popular athlete in the city. Meanwhile, Towns, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges and of course Tom Thibodeau all had multiple helpings of the blame pie from last season.

Which brings us to now, and the reason why I put off writing about Brunson for as long as I did.