The Forever Man

Let's try to wrap our minds around what we just witnessed, starting with the man most responsible.

Good morning! Can there ever be such a thing as a bad morning after this? I say no.

The Forever Man

Overwhelming.

It’s the best word I can use to describe what yesterday felt like.

Overwhelmed with joy. Overwhelmed with excitement. Overwhelmed with sleep deprivation. Overwhelmed with history. Overwhelmed with content.

That last part is really resonating with me at the moment. All I wanted to do Sunday was go back and rewatch the fourth quarter, the immediate aftermath of the win, the trophy ceremony, and all of the postgame interviews I could find, but of course none of that ended up on my docket. Even with the entirety of my post-championship resting consisting of a two hour nap, I had to kick the content consumption can to today thanks to my daughter’s gymnastics competition followed by back to back to back shows last night. Hopefully by the time I go to bed today, I’ll have actually had a chance to imbibe in the vibes I’ve been waiting 32 years to experience.

In that sense, this reminds me of another one of those special days that made my top-five list, when my wife and I got married and felt like we needed a full week to debrief and decompress from the wedding. The way I feel right now, you could give me until the end of July and I don’t think I’ll be able to take it all in, sort it all out, and properly appreciate all there is to appreciate about what we just witnessed.

But we have to start somewhere, and today’s newsletter is as good a place as any. In the days and weeks to follow, I’ll be going on several deep dives - about the individual players on the roster, how they came together, who deserves the most credit, and which moments will stand the test of time - but for right now, I want to take a beat and get the biggest broad brush stroke out of the way. After that, we can take the time to fill in the finer details, and give this Knicks championship (still doesn’t feel real!) the fine wine treatment it deserves.

And what brush stroke would that be? I’ll give you one guess…

For as much as we all love Jalen Brunson here, I’m not sure any of us can fully wrap our heads around the unique nature of what it is we just saw.

To wit…

• Taken with the 33rd overall selection of the 2018 NBA Draft, Brunson isn’t the latest draft pick to win Finals MVP. That honor goes to Nikola Jokic, who was taken 41st overall in 2014. Other than Jokic though, Brunson is the only player taken 30th or later to attain this honor. In fact, since 1969 when the award was first handed out, only three other players taken after the 15th pick have won Finals MVP: Joe Dumars, drafted 18th; Tony Parker, drafted 28th; and Dennis Johnson, drafted 29th.

• Unlike Jokic, Brunson just pulled off the rare double feat of leading the playoffs in scoring and winning the NBA title in the same season. The last player to do that before him was LeBron James in 2012. Before LeBron, it was Shaquille O’Neal in 2000. Before Shaq, it was Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon in the 90’s. That’s the entire list of people to pull this off in the last 50 years. Brunson now joins the group.

• At 32.6 points, Brunson’s NBA Finals scoring average is the 22nd highest in any finals series in NBA history. The only players who have attained a higher average are Michael Jordan, Rick Barry, Elgin Baylor, Shaquille O’Neal, Jerry West, LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dwyane Wade, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Hakeem Olajuwon.

• In the last two minutes of clutch time (score within five points either way) across all five Finals games, Jalen Brunson scored 14 points on 6-of-12 shooting. Every other player in the series combined to score 30 points on 8-of-24 shooting in those situations.

• Brunson had a personal 10-0 run in the fourth quarter of Game 5 to tie the game at 83-all after the Knicks were down 83-73 with 8:21 remaining. He personally outscored the entire Spurs team 15-7 down the stretch of this game.

• Jalen joined Michael Jordan, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bob Pettit as the only players to score at least 45 points in an NBA Finals closeout game.

• With that 45-point outing, Brunson tied Wilt Chamberlain for the 8th most 38+ point playoff games in NBA history with 15. Wilt played in 160 career playoff games. Brunson has appeared in 86, but has only started 79. The only active players with more 38+ point playoff games are LeBron James and Kevin Durant.

• With a total playoff plus/minus of +235, Jalen Brunson finished the postseason with the third highest cumulative playoff plus/minus in NBA history, trailing only his teammate Karl-Anthony Towns at +258 and Steph Curry, who was +245 for the 2017 Warriors. The other names above +200 for a single playoff run are Draymond Green, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Ben Wallace.

• At just under $35 million, Jalen Brunson was the 47th highest paid player in the league this season.

I threw that last one in there not only for shits and giggles, but to underline the importance of what Brunson has meant to this franchise.

When he signed his contract extension in July of 2024, he had already established himself as a player fully capable of succeeding on the greatest stage in the NBA. The only question left was whether Leon Rose could properly highlight that preternatural ability by surrounding him with the right pieces. Of course, by signing the extension that he did, he made it feasible for Rose to execute the additional moves necessary to complete a championship roster.

We said at the time how much that decision evoked a desire to win that went above and beyond what most superstars would even consider. Saturday’s accomplishment is, in many ways, the completion of a journey that began not when Rose signed Brunson to a free agent contract in 2022, but when he signed that sub-max extension two years later.

Look again at those bullet points above, and some of the names alongside Jalen’s on those lists. They are the crème de la crème of the NBA. Ever since LeBron James made it clear in 2014 that his days of taking discounts were over, superstars uniformly followed his lead for the next decade. Until, that is, Brunson decided to pave his own path.

The result has been a resounding, undeniable success.

Forget just the title. Brunson has now led the Knicks to eight postseason series victories since he arrived. In the same time frame, Kevin Durant has zero playoff series victories. Ditto for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Steph Curry has two. LeBron James and Luka Doncic have three apiece. Donovan Mitchell has four. Nikola Jokic has six. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jayson Tatum have seven.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Jalen Brunson is the best winner in the NBA at the present moment. As Benjy told me after Game 5, “you don’t solve Jalen Brunson. Jalen Brunson solves you.”

Looking across the larger New York sports landscape of the last 30 years, the two names that most come to mind are Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. If anything, Brunson has the best traits of both. Mariano was the ultimate closer, while Jeter was the guy you’d most at the plate with the game on the line. Mariano was unflappable regardless of the situation, while Jeter’s intangibles overshadowed a skill set that gradually became underrated the more he racked up wins.

Does Brunson’s Knicks championship surpass the ‘98 Yankees for best New York title team of the modern era? What about the ‘07 Giants? Or the ‘94 Rangers, who ended a drought one year longer than the one the Knicks just erased?

Whatever order you have them in, that is the conversation Brunson has put the Knicks in, except I’d argue that he was more vital to this championship than Jeter, Rivera, Eli and even Messier were to theirs. Does he slot more neatly alongside Joe Namath? Lawrence Taylor? Or is he simply a modern day combination of the two greatest Knicks from a previous era, Willis Reed and Walt Frazier?

Ultimately I think what makes Jalen Brunson so special is that he defies comparison. There has never quite been another NBA player like him, just like there has never been another New York superstar cut from exactly the same cloth. His combination of poise, confidence, humility, perseverance, grit, competitiveness and selflessness is unheard of in modern sports. His “brand” is deflecting the spotlight in an era when everyone yearns to seek out the brightest lights possible. He is a walking anomaly, and not just in the way he dupes giant humans who are hell bent on stopping him. He defies convention as much as he does defenders.

He is Jalen Brunson, who may or may not go down as the greatest Knick of them all by the time he unlaces his high tops for good, but is undoubtedly a living legend smack dab in the middle of his prime.

No stat or accolade can fully capture his impact.

The forever man who led a forever team to the promised land.

Maybe it’s time to stop doubting him after all.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”