Former Villanova star Jalen Brunson proves doubters wrong with Christmas Day performance
Brunson dropped 38 points for Knicks amid conversation over whether he’s a true 1A.
Jalen Brunson is one of the best players in Villanova basketball history, leading the Wildcats to two national titles and winning National Player of the Year in 2018.
Despite his massive success in college, some teams doubted Brunson’s NBA potential, letting him drop to the Dallas Mavericks in the second round. Now with the New York Knicks, Brunson has become one of the league’s best point guards — but he still has doubters.
Las Vegas Aces head coach and former San Antonio Spurs assistant Becky Hammon went viral for her comments on ESPN’s “NBA Today” that Brunson, who is 6-foot-2, is too small to be the top scoring option on a championship team.
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“They’re well-coached, they’re going to be on their defensive game, but at the end of the day, they don’t have a dude,” Hammon said. “You gotta have a dude, you gotta have a 1A dude, and they’re missing that at the end of the day, if we’re just getting down to brass taxes... Can I tell you my philosophy? If your best player is small, you’re not winning... This is a game that, the big and bold, it favors that. I love Jalen Brunson, but you’re going to put him on the level of a 1A? You’re putting him with Giannis, [Joel] Embiid, Steph?”
She’s not necessarily wrong. Steph Curry is the only player of Brunson’s stature to be the top scoring option on a championship team in the last two decades. But many people took her comments as a shot at Brunson — including some inside the Knicks’ locker room.
“People are gonna say stupid [expletive] all they want,” Brunson’s Villanova and Knicks teammate Josh Hart said Saturday. “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.”
Brunson proceeded to drop 38 points with six assists and no turnovers on Christmas Day against the Bucks, beating out Bucks’ 1A Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard in a 129-122 win.
The Knicks believe Brunson can be the rare exception to the rule. Knicks center Isaiah Hartenstein posted a photo of him pointing at Brunson on Instagram after the win with the caption “1A.”
“Anyone who doubts him doesn’t really know him,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters.
Brunson has defied expectations ever since he arrived in New York, going from being a secondary guard in Dallas to one of the league’s brightest stars. So this time, it’s business as usual.
“I’ve heard things like that all my life, so it doesn’t really change anything,” Brunson told reporters on Friday.
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