After acquiring Jalen Brunson, Leon Rose’s New York Knicks front office correctly identified the guard as a championship-level No. 1 option. They saw him outduel Donovan Mitchell, for the second year in a row, in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. And followed it up with a series of tough choices over the next several years that eventually delivered an NBA Championship to New York City.
Even after Brunson's historic closeout performance and overall playoff run, though, the guard is still underrated in and around league circles. The problem, logically, is that his supporting cast is, too. At some point, critics are going to have to pick which reality they want to live in. The Knicks won the NBA Cup, had the best defense in the league during the postseason, and won the NBA Championship.
If Brunson isn't one of the five best players in the league, or if Karl-Anthony Towns isn't among its top 20, how was any of that possible? If both of the Knicks' biggest offensive stars are such poor defenders that they can't rank above stars like Luka Dončić, why don't OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart get more credit for carrying them to a league-best result?
The answer is cognitive dissonance; over the last 53 years, the Knicks' doubters have seldom been forced to justify their claims with reason. Regardless of the team's process, the results spoke for themselves. Now, Brunson has helped the Knicks flip the script on even their greatest critics. Those pundits will have to choose which key members of New York's championship run they're going to underrate. It just can't be all of them — at least not anymore.
Brunson's Knicks didn't win the NBA Championship by accident
The Knicks sacrificed the team’s most impactful young players, in RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley, to surround Brunson and All-NBA co-star Julius Randle with the league’s best 3-and-D wing, OG Anunoby. Then, they sacrificed most of their available draft capital to add another elite defender — one who wouldn't need touches to contribute on offense — in Mikal Bridges.
And, before their recently-assembled quartet of Villanova alumni could ever play together, New York sacrificed Brunson's co-star and Wildcat Donte DiVincenzo to take Karl-Anthony Towns off the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves, looking for flexibility underneath the second apron to help them build around Anthony Edwards.
Hindsight can be cruel, but Towns winning an NBA title as Brunson's No. 2 before Edwards climbed the proverbial mountain makes that move hard to defend today. New York, on the other hand, will gladly take their rings.
The Knicks sure earned them, improving their regular season record from the year before in each of Brunson's first four seasons on the team. They also made it further in the NBA Playoffs in each of the last four seasons than they did the year prior: New York lost in Game 6 of the 2023 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals; they lost Game 7 of the same round in 2024; they fell short in six games in the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals.
They lost three games, total, in the 2026 NBA Playoffs. They made history on their way to ending their 53-year title drought. After a tough first three games, the Knicks absolutely dominated every opponent they played.
Brunson may not be the tallest, strongest, or most athletic player in the NBA. Nonetheless, he has methodically climbed his way to the top of the mountain — just like he did, twice, at Villanova.
Players cannot will themselves to victory alone in a 5-on-5 sport. Some over time, however, have made it seem possible. The six-foot guard, with his 45-point NBA Finals closeout performance front of mind, is among them. He's one of the NBA's best players, full stop. FanSided's NBA99 list, however, had him at No. 7.
If Brunson isn't among the league's five best players, someone like Towns or Anunoby should certainly rank in the top 20 — at least — right? Not on the NBA99 list, where Towns comes in at No. 24. Anunoby ranks as the league's 39th best player, behind Zion Williamson, Stephon Castle, and Alperen Sengun.
Maybe the Knicks won the 2026 NBA title completely by luck, without a top-five player, a top-20 co-star, or elite complementary pieces around them. Or, maybe, even an NBA Championship wasn't enough to stop analysts from sleeping too hard on the Knicks.
Knowing them, though, Brunson and his group probably like it that way.
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