Jalensanity
The man who never went first now takes a back seat to no one.
The first U.S. president to be assassinated got a kick-ass memorial and prime posthumous real estate on the penny and the five-dollar bill; his birthday is a legal holiday in New York. The second got a cat who loves lasagna named after him. In all of walks of life, Americans are front-runners. The NBA is no different.
All-NBA First Team is another level of class versus Second Team. Borges might argue Kobe Bryant being Kobe Bryant after Michael Jordan was MJ is more impressive than anything MJ ever did, but most fans place more value in being the first to do something than the second. First-round picks receive guaranteed contracts; second-rounders have no control over the situation they find themselves in and can be left scrambling for opportunities by the time the team that drafted them decides to cut them.
Since the NBA went to a two-round draft in 1989, more than 1,000 players had their name called by the commissioner’s understudy. A handful went on to become Hall of Famers: Alex English, Maurice Cheeks, Dennis Rodman and Manu Ginóbili. A few active players seem good bets to join them. Nikola Jokić, for sure. Draymond Green, too.
What about Jalen Brunson?
Measuring a spot for Brunson in the Holy of Holies is probably premature, though his play in consecutive seasons and postseasons makes that optimism more realistic. What about in Knicks history? Does Brunson have a place yet in that pantheon?
If we stick to the 1989 boundary, the literally one and only second-rounder besides Brunson to become a player of significance in New York – a multiyear starter on meaningful teams – is one of Brunson’s teammates. Mitchell Robinson was selected 36th in 2018 with a pick the Knicks acquired from trading Carmelo Anthony. That’s it. It’s been an otherwise barren cupboard. For eight straight years in the 1990s, the Knicks never had a second-round pick, bookended by Brian Quinnett in 1989 and DeMarco Johnson in 1998. From Johnson to Mitch 20 years later, the names are less likely to result in “Ahh!” than “Huh?”:
J.R. Koch; Lavor Postell; Michael Wright, Eric Chenowith; Milos Vujanić; Maciej Lampe; Slavko Vraneš; Trevor Ariza; Dijon Thompson; Andy Rautins; Landry Fields; Kostas “Air Pap” Papanikolaou; Cleanthony Early; Thanasis Antetokounmpo; Damyean Dotson; Ognjen Jaramaz.
The only player from that group who went on to an exemplary career was Ariza. Labeled “delusional” by that paragon of mental health himself, Larry Brown, Ariza’s career lasted 18 years and included five top-20 Defensive Player of the Year finishes and a ring with the 2009 Lakers. Before 1989, we’re talking Gerald Wilkins, 47th in the 1985 draft and who, in a draft class of 162, had a higher career scoring average than all but eight. Half the eight were Hall of Famers, including Patrick Ewing; the only player drafted after Wilkins with a better career scoring mark was Michael Adams, owner of one of the Association’s greatest push shots.
Three years into his career, Toby Knight looked on his way to greatness before tearing his knee in 1980. Phil Jackson and Mike Riordan were meaningful rotation players on the 1970 title-winners. Those teams were so loaded with young talent that in 1968 the Knicks could afford to leave a future three-time All-Star exposed in the expansion draft, where Phoenix was only too happy to scoop up Dick Van Arsdale. Howard Komives was All-Rookie in 1965, and later a key piece in the deal for Dave DeBusschere.
There’s no question Brunson’s already lapped that field. If we open the definition of “second-round” pick to literally any Knick selected in a second round, regardless of era, we add three of the greatest. Harry Gallatin went 20th in 1948, Richie Guerin 17th in 1954 and Willis Reed 10th in 1964. Brunson was selected 33rd in 2018 by Dallas, three spots before Mitch, which only adds to his case as the second-round GOAT – Gallatin, Guerin and Reed all would have been first-round picks taken where they were today; Reed would have gone late in the lottery. Brunson going 33 adds to his legend’s sense of scale. And numerologically speaking, the greatest Knick since #33 having gone 33rd in the draft feels righter than karma and richer than korma.
Clearly it’s absurd to compare Brunson’s Knick career two years in with three Hall of Famers who were all six- or seven-time All-Stars in the blue and orange. But like mass on the moon, absurdity loses some of the weight it usually carries in this case. On Earth it’s usually a negative, a synonym for “delusional,” really – Alonzo Mourning insisting the Heat were the better team after losing to the Knicks for the third year in a row was absurd. Out on whatever world Brunson’s career arc is playing out, absurdity’s become an exclamation, the joyful refutation of everything the world says cannot be, yet we know nevertheless is.
If Brunson’s too short to be a 1A, yet plays like one, it stands to reason that same person, having handled the bulkload of the offense for nearly five months now, and an even greater share in the Sixers series, would have nothing left to give. We see 7-foot MVPs and 7-foot-3 unicorns going down left and right this time of year. To think Brunson — tiny, big-headed Brunson — could put up offensive numbers not seen since Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan is a child’s prayer, a bubble whose entire mass is merely the weight of its own desire. To think Brunson could do all that and have anything left to give late in games on the defensive end? Madness.
There’s a beautiful Seinfeld subplot where Jerry’s looking to buy a new car. Kramer goes with him to the dealership and ends up taking a salesman on a test drive with him. Kramer, famously a mooch, frequently borrows Jerry’s cars and is specifically interested in how far it can last once the gas meter hits empty. The dealer is clearly uncomfortable with the idea, though even he shows more tact than Larry Brown – instead of calling Kramer delusional, he anxiously goes along.
When the car hits E, Kramer is finally ready to get back to the dealership, but something has stirred in the salesman, a zealot now committed, converted, determined to push as far as the ride will take them, consequences be damned. The absurdity, initially an anxiety, now illuminates a liberty and lust for life we sense is always close at hand but so rarely within reach. That’s the 2024 Knicks in one sentence.
You couldn’t blame anybody if tomorrow morning you woke up and it was 2022, the day after Brunson signed with the Knicks, and you realized this was all a dream. You couldn’t be all that surprised if Brunson was good, even pretty good, but not the player you dreamt of. If you woke up and found yourself back one year, after the Knicks lost to the Heat, and you lived through a 2024 where Brunson gave everything he could but was overwhelmed by the losses of Julius Randle and OG Anunoby during the season, and collapsed late, overexerted, inefficient but never-say-die, you wouldn’t complain. You’d love him the way a parent loves a child: for all that they are.
Pinch yourself. It’s May 4, 2024. Jalen Brunson is the greatest second-round pick to play for the Knicks in at least 50 years. If he stays healthy and the Knicks stay well-run – my knuckles are bleeding from all the wood I knocked on while writing that – he could join only a handful of seconds who soared all the way to Springfield. But fans shall not live by hope alone. Brunson’s shots are dropping like manna from heaven today. The absurdity isn’t you dreaming. The man everyone passed up on is passing them all while leading the Knicks back to the top.
