The thought of having to gameplan for Victor Wembanyama is horrifying. The 22-year-old center has every physical advantage imaginable, and the skills to capitalize on them. In just his third season in the league, he's led his San Antonio Spurs all the way to the NBA Finals.
Given Wembanyama's winning combination of size, strength, mentality, and every other imaginable trait, it makes sense that nobody has been able to stop him. But one NBA superstar has managed to best the young Frenchman this season, with Jalen Brunson winning MVP in the New York Knicks' NBA Cup Championship win over the Spurs in Las Vegas.
It certainly presents as a tall task, on paper, for a 6-foot-1 point guard to lead his Knicks past the 7-foot-5 behemoth's Spurs. But isn't that exactly the point? In fact — it's why there's no star better suited to win the 2026 Finals MVP over Wembanyama than Brunson himself.
Brunson's unlikely path to NBA superstardom is why he can beat Wemby
In a profile of Brunson in the Wall Street Journal, Robert O'Connell summed Brunson's game up well while describing what it was about the guard that allowed him to overcome the physical disadvantages that most opponents presented him with.
"He had trained with his father from an early age to master every possible permutation of getting a bucket," O'Connell wrote, leaning on the expertise of Brunson's coach in high school. He shared that the Knicks' captain knew back, even back then, that he wouldn't be able to threaten opponents physically. Brunson clearly found a way to make it work.
After getting five-star recruit status, the Knicks' captain has had plenty of expectations to defy at every stage of his career. The two National Championships at Villanova weren't enough to convince NBA scouts he was worthy of a first round draft selection.
The Dallas Mavericks, as a result, were able to steal him in the second round. There, that he went from potential 6th Man of the Year to Luka Doncic's clear-cut second option. He disproved narratives about his game in the process, by thriving off of the ball.
In games like his infamous playoff performances against the Utah Jazz, Brunson flashed the exact qualities that he rode to his superstardom today. Every time the point guard dribbles, or shoots, it's a reminder of the hundreds of hours of grueling work that went into his ability to execute at such a high level.
It's literally impossible for a player of his stature to excel to these extents in the NBA without all-time elite footwork, shot-making abilities, and overall feel for the game of basketball. Brunson truly does bring all of those traits to the table. And, like real stars do, he does it in every single game.
The Knicks' Captain gives his team his best every single time that his best is needed — even when he's not personally at his best. It's how he defied expectations all the way to NBA superstardom. And it's the key to how he can beat Wembanyama, again, this season.
Brunson has always welcomed pressure during, and before, Knicks career
Brunson showed that signature resilience when the Mavericks weren't willing to value him like a true star player, even after some special playoff performances. It's what led him to sign a deal to lead the Knicks and disprove the next set of doubts that analysts hurled his way.
Knowing that the entire NBA landscape would ridicule James Dolan, Leon Rose, and William Wesley for what would effectively be viewed as a nepotism hire, he still embraced the spotlight of New York City.
That should have made it obvious that he'd wind up setting playoff records in his first two seasons in New York, and showing the Knicks' front office that he didn't need a ball-handling co-star, but analysts still refused to rank him over players like Donovan Mitchell or Anthony Edwards.
Rose, Wesley, and the rest of the Knicks' braintrust listened, though, and went on to build around their lead guard. They acquired players, regardless of the cost, that would star in their specific roles. They even riskily hired a coach they felt had all of the necessary qualities to take them to the top.
With the NBA Finals starting on Wednesday, the Knicks are just four wins away from all of these risks and sacrifices paying off. Their roster has shown, throughout this postseason, that they have what it takes to overcome adversity in various forms.
But they, and every other team in the league, have never seen someone like this version of Wembanyama in a seven-game series. Luckily for them, the NBA has clearly never seen a superstar like Brunson. Otherwise, they wouldn't keep doubting him at every step of his journey to the Hall of Fame.
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