Knicks captain Jalen Brunson leads by example by putting team ahead of himself
The Knicks' Jalen Brunson speaks to the media after being named team captain during a press conferece at Madison Squaare Garden on Thursday. Credit: Ed Quinn
Knicks star Jalen Brunson was raised to be a team leader.
Whether he had chosen to be a doctor, a banker or a basketball player, Brunson said his parents, Rick and Sandra, expected him to be the one who would show others the way.
“Whatever I was going to do in life, I was going to lead,” Brunson said Thursday at a ceremony to celebrate his being named the first Knicks captain since the 2018-19 season.
While it’s true that the title of captain doesn’t mean all that much in basketball, it is one that Brunson clearly takes seriously. So much so, that the Knicks’ point guard admitted that he had studied the biographies of two of sports’ greatest leaders, Derek Jeter and Tom Brady.
Brady and Jeter were just two of the famous captains who congratulated Brunson via video during the ceremony Thursday at Madison Square Garden. What makes the two unique — especially Brady — is that there were times in their careers where they took less money than they were worth in order to help build their franchise.
Leaders can preach all they want about making sacrifices for the good of the team. But true leaders never ask others to do something they wouldn’t.
This offseason, Brunson made what can be viewed in today’s NBA as the ultimate sacrifice. He left more than $100 million on the table in order to help the Knicks build a better roster around him. Had he waited until next summer, he could have signed an extension worth up to $270 million over five years.
Who does that nowadays? Who admits that there are some things that mean more to them than money?
“I think anyone who knows me, knows what I’m about” Brunson said. “I think about every decision that I make and I’m completely comfortable with what’s done . . . I want to win. I want to win here.
“A lot can happen in a year,” he added. “Everyone in this room has seen a lot happen in a year when players wait out. Two, I would love to be here, I want to be here for the rest of my career. Winning trumps everything that I do individually.”
Did you hear that, Knicks fans? Brunson isn’t going anywhere. He wants to be a Knick for life and he wants to win big doing it.
In just two seasons with the Knicks, Brunson, along with coach Tom Thibodeau and president Leon Rose, has transformed the team from a perennial laughingstock into one of the best teams in the East.
Since Brunson took over at point guard, the team has gone 97-87 for their best consecutive seasons since 1999-2000 and 2000-01.
This past season, the 27-year-old averaged 28.7 points, 6.7 assists and 3.6 rebounds in 77 games, finished fifth in MVP voting and carried the Knicks to the second seed in the Eastern Conference.
Brunson averaged 32.4 points, 7.5 assists and 3.3 rebounds in 13 postseason games, which included a first-round win over the Philadelphia 76ers and then a conference semifinal loss to the Indiana Pacers. He did all this despite the fact that the Knicks were plagued by injuries to their starters all season long and in the playoffs.
This season, however, a second-round exit is not going to cut it. The Knicks are better than that. Their fans know it. And Brunson knows it. He knows on paper that the Knicks are a very good team. Paper, however, means nothing.
“It’s nice to hear that we’re contenders, but I think that we’ve got to go into training camp without having that word be spoken of,” Brunson said. “From Day One, let’s just get better every single day. Let’s focus on the next day. Obviously, I said I want to get past the second round for two straight years, but you can’t just go into the season and jump back into the second round. You’ve got to go back and start all over again.
“We have some new pieces, we have some familiar faces. What can we do with it? What type of team do we want to be? So we’ve just got to lock in and buy in together.”
In other words, everyone has to be willing to sacrifice. Just like their new captain.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.