New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson has consistently preached a commitment to chasing team accomplishments over individual accolades.
Because of this mentality, the beloved point guard will presumably not be remotely disappointed if and when he inevitably falls well short of winning the 2026 NBA MVP award, despite currently being a top-six candidate.
In the league's updated Most Valuable Player ladder, The Captain has found his stock rise up to sixth, surpassing the likes of Philadelphia's Tyrese Maxey and falling just behind Boston's Jaylen Brown.
Despite his ascension up the board, however, no matter how well he plays or how successful New York ends up being this year with him leading the charge, there's virtually a net-zero chance of him ultimately claiming the Michael Jordan Trophy for himself due to the fact that there's simply no parity when it comes to legitimate contention for the honor.
Knicks star will inevitably trail usual suspects in MVP race -- and that's ok
Throughout the 21st Century, there have been 25 MVP awards given out, less than half of which were received by one-time honorees.
Over the last seven years alone, Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo have been responsible for five on their own, with the latter placing every year and the former falling short just once of a top-four finish in the final voting tallies.
So far this year, the two top candidates are Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the two most recent recipients of the illustrious honor, while the third, Luka Doncic, placed in the top three not two seasons ago.
It's easy to assume that one of these three will be given the title come year's end.
Now, this is not to deminish the value of Brunson. After all, as things currently stand, he has his Knicks ranked second in the Eastern Conference with a record of 17-7 as well as second in the entire association in offensive rating (121.8) while, most recently, guiding them to the NBA Cup semifinals.
With that being said, however, barring an unforeseen turn of events (injuries, plummeting in the standings for either the Thunder or Nuggets, etc.), there's virtually no chance of the point guard making himself a serious threat to win the hardware.
And that's ok.
As Brunson verbalized this past offseason, all of his career goals are "basically team-based." Needless to say, he'd be completely fine losing out on a regular-season MVP if it meant winning an NBA Championship.
Obviously, so, too, would Knicks fans.