Jalen Brunson: The Gift that Keeps Giving

I never watched the Knicks growing up. The son of two Big East Basketball fanatics, it was always college hoops. My Mother told stories of her freshman year of college, 1985, with Rollie and the gang playing “the perfect game” against Patrick Ewing and the Georgetown Hoyas. When Jay Wright’s suits hit the scene, she joked about how nice it was to hear him talk every second weekend in the CBS studio. We watched Scottie Renyalds, Darrun Hillard, Kyle Lowry, Dante Cunningham, Corey Fisher, and countless other Villanova players (We also watched Mike Nardi, who shot perhaps the worst shot I have ever seen, passing on a wide-open fast-break layup, dribbling to the corner for a three, which he then missed, only to be saved by a Scottie Reynolds rebound and layup. I have never found this clip, so you’re just going to have to take me at my word that this happened, and it was awful) run Wright’s four-out offense with these seemingly typecast centers patrolling the paint. At the time, this was a novel concept, but one used out of necessity, as Wright wanted to put his best players, often the guards, on the floor. This childhood of Villanova basketball culminated in the scream I heard from upstairs as Kris Jenkins caught the basketball on the right wing of the basketball court placed on NRG Stadium’s field (This Jim Nance call always struck me as terrible, the shrill “Villanova! Phenomenal!”). Knowing, but not knowing, due to the delay in the basement television’s broadcast, that the shot was going in.

Two freshmen saw time on this championship team, Mikal Bridges, and this highly touted point guard out of Chicago, with a game similar to Ryan Arcidiacono but with more wiggle and all the perks that come from being a lefty. They both had the post-up into shooting arm turn-around fade, with Arcidiacono’s being more from the middle of the court, right at the top of the restricted arc. (When Ryan first played for Villanova, I thought his name was Archie Diacono. It was helpful when people just started calling him the Arch.) John Hart was the best player on the team, the do-it-all wing with an “I worked really hard on this the past two summers” jumper and who attacked the rim with his shoulder to make space to lay the ball in with his hand, nudging the backboard as he fell back to the ground (you know the move).

I never watched the Knicks growing up. Well, not like, never; I remember Carmelo coming home, the video, that freaking song. “There’s a basketball court on every corner” bullshit. I loved him for it. I love JR Smith, a shooter born a tad early. I loved his antics, the confidence he shot with, and his celebrations. He seemed to have the time of his life out on the court every night ("I'm a volume shooter, they told me a need a permit for the scooter").

People at the park or parents who know I used to play occasionally ask me for basketball advice. Sometimes, no one asks, and I just annoyingly give it. I’ve always hated that guy, but sitting in Law School classrooms for the past year and a half has made me understand why they do it: this urge to get out the knowledge on the topic I have the most information to share. Sitting in a booth, watching a game on a projector, and understanding that corner three was open because the two-man on the weak side went way too hard on a close-out to a Rondo while the rest of the room screams about Scott Foster.

I wrote this the day after coming home from school and watching the Knicks trash the Nets for the second time over the past few weeks. Jalen, Mikal, and Josh. Archie Diaono traded for Josh at the deadline (see supra). Jalen had 39 on 98.7 true shooting, a stat I have no idea what it means and only know because I was going to reply on Twitter to a guy posting the StatMuse photos of “best backcourts” in the NBA, wanting to put Jalen and Quickly next to each other and reply to it on my Knicks burner Twitter account.

I have watched Jalen Brunson play a lot of basketball. Looking back, he might be the person I have watched play basketball the most. (He's not.) Even when I started to watch the Knicks, from the midway point of the 2020 season on, I kept my eyes on the Villanova players around the league, with Mikal and Brunson at the forefront.

There was a sense—I would say a majority, but maybe this is wrong—when Villanova won its second championship that Mikal was the best player, even though Brunson got all the Player of the Year awards. It sure looked like it for their first few years in the NBA, with Bridges blossoming on the bright future Suns and Brunson sitting next to Rick Carlisle.

I had a year between college and law school. I didn’t do a whole lot. I drank. I interned for a retired Judge. I sat in my childhood bedroom, recovering from should surgery, trying to learn chess and reading “Getting to Maybe” occasionally (I still have not finished that book; I would much rather have known about “Getting to Yes.” I loved Getting to Yes; way better book. I always thought these books’ names were funny, like how if you read Everything They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School and Everything You Learn at Harvard Business School, you become an immortal being). I only found joy in playing pickup hoops and watching the Knicks. Often, Dallas would be the late game on ESPN or TNT after the Knicks game, and I, not having a job nor being required to wake up at a particular hour, stayed up to watch Jalen. When Luka got hurt, and Jalen had to be the number 1 guy, it wasn’t surprising that Jalen torched Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley. Frankly, the Mavs could not guard Jalen or Spencer Dinwiddie in that series even if their whole team grew those hot-dog fingers in Everything Everywhere All at Once (I stand by this choice (parenthetical within a parenthetical: I am now editing this piece about a year out, and this joke is unbelievably bad. But I stood by it then; I’ll stand by it now (Just to make this worse, the in-text sentence should just be deleted, it adds nothing to this piece))). I had seen Jalen do this before, countless times. It just made me happy. Happy for him, sure, but mostly happy for myself. That I got to watch this performance from this player, that my parents would drop the “what the fuck is he doing with his life” look when they walked into the living room when I told them Jalen was on the Mavericks and it was the first round of the playoffs and he has 30, or 40, or 50 in a given game.

When Jalen came to New York, there was chatter of an overpay. A six-foot second-round pick, only averaging sixteen a game, getting 100 million-plus from The Knicks. New York Knicks die-hards were worried, and rightfully so. But, in my house, it was pure excitement. We turned from debating Daniel Jones’s contract to Josh Hart’s impact. My Dad started to listen to the Knicks on the radio when he couldn’t watch from home, constantly complaining about RJ Barrett and how he didn’t show up to Jalen Brunson’s jersey retirement at Villanova when the rest of the team did (I also complain about RJ Barrett, but I’ll only admit that in a footnote. I’ll also admit he’s 22 and a gym rat, and I’ll bet on those guys any day). My Mom’s eloquence is on full display whenever Julius Randle rumbles to the rim for an and-one lefty layup, and she exclaims, elongating the second word, “He’s big.”

At the start of March, Jalen’s play is seemingly a given. A leader, his quiet confidence (boooooo) exudes from his play and his actions on the court. The slight pause and look back to Coach Thibodeau after the blowout win, which lip readers around the NBA world will tell you, is Brunson whispering, “Hey, Coach,” sticking his fist out to make contact with him. Not to make more this small moment than it is (Hey, Jackass! Literally this entire article, Jackass!) but an action by Jalen to allow his Coach to enjoy this, to enjoy this win streak, to enjoy this team, to enjoy the fact Jalen saved his job, enjoy watching the young guys out there on a Wednesday night with the Garden crowd filtering out because the Knicks blew out the fucking Nets. For a moment, we saw Thibs smile.

I can tell you the actions of Jalen Brunson. He signed with Villanova when he was a heralded recruit, knowing that the path to the NBA from 'Nova is often a longer one than other top schools—telling Ryan Archidiancono before he arrived on campus that they would win one the following year when he showed up. His three-point shooting percentage rose, both standstill and off the dribble. His ball handling reached a new level. The way he dances through the lane with pivots, leans, and pump fakes galore remained the same despite the rise in competition.

Whenever a kid asks me for basketball advice and no one is paying me (so, anytime someone asks me for basketball advice) I tell them two things. First, however much you think you are pump-faking, you are pump-faking too little. Second, (because all of the people asking me for advice are kids or parents of kids and, therefore, are short humans) go watch Jalen Brunson’s highlights on YouTube. Not to do what he does; they can’t. His shot-making, balance, handle, quickness, and pivoting from one direction to the other are all on a level that we basketball watchers can’t comprehend. I tell them to watch him to show them how to make space, read what a Defender does, and exploit it. Bruson’s handle is so tight that he makes what I call (and assume many people call) the second move. It is not the second move as in the second move you do when attacking a defender; it is the move that exploits the fact that the defender is out of position because of your first move to make the shot or drive or whatever even easier.

Jalen Brunson’s actions got us here, from a second-round pick who got benched in the playoffs to dropping fifty in a playoff game. We never see him work on his craft (obligatory Ben Simmons joke), but we all know how hard he works from the way his game has evolved over these past few years (1:26).

So, thank you, Jalen. We see the work you put in and feel that work in the joy you give us, watching you play every night. I hope you know how much you are appreciated, especially by a guy whose break from his life is flipping on a TV screen to listen to Mike Breen rave about his favorite basketball player.

And, as always: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSCdq1s5ekI