“I have so far removed myself from doubting Hurts, in no matter what situation. I think why you're a fan of Herbert is because that's what it should look like.”
Dan Orlovsky's take on Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts summed up what so many sports fans have failed — or simply refused — to articulate over the years. It doesn't matter what one player has accomplished in his career, in a game where score is always kept and the goal is ultimately for one's team to outscore their opponent.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and if another player simply just feels like a better player to a fan, pundit, executive, or anyone else — then they simply are.
Jalen Brunson has become intimately familiar with this since leading the New York Knicks' 2026 NBA Championship run. He was never supposed to reach those heights; he wasn't tall enough to be a "1A superstar." Those limits did not stop him from accomplishing what countless players never have. But even in the wake of his accomplishment, it remains a given to many to rank players like Luka Dončić and Cade Cunningham ahead of him.
The Knicks' Captain is certainly used to being doubted. It didn't stop him from winning two NCAA Championships or beating the NBA's French prince that was promised en route to an NBA title. It's still not enough, though, for league pundits to rank him above the players they seem to think do a better job of "looking the part" of a real superstar.
Brunson made history in the 2026 NBA Playoffs — and it's still not enough
Brunson's most recent playoff run came to a fitting conclusion: he became the sixth player in NBA history — joining Jerry West, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal, and LeBron James — to both lead an NBA postseason in points per game and win its Finals MVP award.
His teammates, from Karl-Anthony Towns and OG Anunoby to Landry Shamet and Jose Alvarado, were crucial to the Knicks’ first championship in 53 years. Brunson, however, was the team's lead ball handler. He was certainly their leading scorer. He may not have created many open shots for teammates with flashy passes that left viewers yelling, "Hee hee!"
Brunson did, however, create plenty of assists for Towns by screening Anunoby's defender off the ball. He defended with vigor, allowing the Knicks flexibility to switch like they did against the Boston Celtics the year before. The Captain even took huddles over during timeouts, showing teammates it was time to take accountability and execute.
On every level, Brunson has done whatever it takes to lead winning efforts. Becoming the league's reigning Finals MVP doesn't automatically qualify anyone for best-in-the-world status, nor should it. But how good does a player, who has never led a team to a championship, have to be to be considered better than Brunson?
FanSided's NBA99 list put six players ahead of Brunson. Jayson Tatum, who played just 16 games last season, came in a spot ahead of him. The Knicks' Captain was given "Tier 2" designation, alongside players like Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid — who have never played in an Eastern Conference Finals — and Cunningham, Donovan Mitchell, and Anthony Edwards — who have yet to make the NBA Finals a single time in their careers.
Brunson was the best player on a title-winning team in June. And if he's not a top-tier player, what is Towns doing as the 24th-best player in the league on this list? Shouldn't Brunson deserve much more credit for carrying him across the finish line? What are we doing here?
Neither Adam Mares nor Jason Timpf ranked Brunson among the league's top five players on a recent episode of The All-NBA Podcast. Both put Dončić ahead of Brunson; the Los Angeles Laker has never won an MVP award and, while he led the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Finals in 2024, has not come competitively close to touching any hardware.
Mares went as far as to rank Cunningham over Brunson, citing the potential of the Detroit Pistons' initiator to emerge as a Brunson-like player with a better supporting cast. Brunson, on the other hand, is a Brunson-like player right now. The question arises, proverbially, again: what are we doing?
Critics and doubters leave Brunson only one choice
Brunson has shown Knicks fans, San Antonio Spurs fans, and anyone else watching that he's a capable 1A superstar willing to sacrifice in several ways for the purpose of winning. That's more than enough for his fans in New York, who spent all summer celebrating the championship victory.
The guard and his teammates, however, have made clear that they're not satisfied with things as they stand. Brunson will be among the league's many superstars trying to win the 2027 NBA Championship.
There seems to only be one surefire way for the guard to establish himself as indubitably being one of the NBA's five best players, though. And it's to help the Knicks run it back — however that may look.
For now, he'll have to deal with being the reverse Herbert. The Finals MVP trophy shouldn't hurt, either. At the end of the day, it simply doesn't matter what he's done so far — just imagine how we would talk about players like Dončić and Cunningham if they accomplished the same things!
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