Kieran Shannon: Brunson, basketball’s greatest underdog, raises ceiling for all the small dudes
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - JUNE 13: Jalen Brunson #11 of the New York Knicks drives to the basket against Victor Wembanyama #1 of the San Antonio Spurs during the fourth quarter in Game Five of the 2026 NBA Finals at Frost Bank Center on June 13, 2026 in San Antonio, Texas. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
For those of us of a certain height and sporting persuasion, it is not uncommon to provoke a curious and bemused response from the uninitiated upon them learning of what that sporting persuasion is. Basketball?! Really?! Oh, right!
Like Patrick Swayze’s Dalton manning doors in Road House, we’ve to keep hearing people say they thought we’d need to be bigger to be into that game.
The prejudice and belittlement can even extend to those within the sport.
Along with all the footage of how New York riotously celebrated the Knicks’ first championship in over half a century, and OG Anunoby’s Hand of God tip-in that went a long way to delivering it, one of the most viral clips in recent days has been Becky Hammon’s dismissal of the Knicks’ Jalen Brunson, and with it his team’s championship prospects, a couple of years ago.
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“They don’t have a dude,” she’d tell ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins, the 2008 NBA champion with the Celtics. “You got to have a 1A dude.”
Perkins, whose dad Kenny played with St Vincent’s and Killester here back in the day as the Robin to Kelvin Troy’s Batman, was higher on the Knicks’ chances. “They do have that dude,” he’d counter. “Jalen Brunson.” Hammon, a WNBA-champion coach as well as player and a former assistant coach to Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs, wasn’t having it.
“No, he too small!” she’d brusquely reply. “If your best player is small, you’re not winning. John Stockton, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash…” They might have won either MVPs or conference titles but not the Larry O’Brien itself; their ceiling had been only so high.
The only exception, she accepted, was Steph Curry, “the greatest shooter to ever walk the planet.” And he was 6’2”. Brunson, without his boots on, is officially listed at 6’1” and even that’s disputable; after last Saturday’s Game Five in San Antonio, the crop of ESPN’s basketball journalism in Brian Windhorst, Tim McMahon and Tim Bontemps estimated he was just south of six foot.
Even when Brunson and the Knicks booked their place in the finals a fortnight ago, Hammon was standing by her conclusion. “I think Jalen Brunson’s a hell of a player, a hell of a player,” she’d tell reporters. But as a student of NBA history, she was “standing by” her initial assessment. “There’s no air to be cleared.” He and the Knicks would not go all the way with a small dude as their dude.
As it happens, a small dude had won the championship before. Isiah Thomas might have been the smallest of the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons that was winning championships back when Spike was doing Do The Right Thing in NYC itself but when it came to court wizardry and management, he was the baddest of them all. Their general. Their leader. Their dude.
But since then players of his height as well as skill profile could only go so far. Stockton, Iverson and Nash, as mentioned by Hammon, or as she could have gone on, Chris Paul, Damian Lillard, Tim Hardaway. Kyrie Irving tried to win a championship in Boston as the Dude but learned it wasn’t as simple as it had been in Cleveland with LeBron as That Guy.
Now though Brunson is Him. And yes, that’s a him with a capital H. Because in New York he is now a sporting god, its most beloved athlete of the 21st century and alongside Frazier, Willis and Ewing on the Mount Rushmore of greatest Knicks ever.
He is probably basketball’s greatest underdog ever. Though he won two national championship colleges, he was only a second-round draft pick. Though he formed a brilliant backcourt tandem with Luka Doncic that brought the Dallas Mavericks to the 2022 western conference finals, foiling the aforementioned Paul along the way, his contract was not renewed by the Mavs that summer; they didn’t think he was worth the kind of money the Knicks were ready to offer.
Even when he justified that salary with the Knicks, he put a cap on what he should earn upon extending his contract; typical of his team-first and win-first mentality, he’s refrained from being a max player. This season he was on €35 million, which is €20 million less than most franchise players in the league. By doing so, it allowed the Knicks to surround him with a quality cast. Not superstars necessarily, but some All-Stars and all stars in their own role.
That is the beauty of this Knicks’ team. Fifteen years ago their pitch to LeBron James in free agency was the amount of money he could make from living near Madison Avenue, not the number of rings he could win playing in Madison Square Garden. When James understandably chose to take his talents to South Beach instead, the Knicks pursued the next biggest shiny thing – Carmelo Anthony. But in trading for him like they did, and paying him like they did, they were left with neither the support cast or leader required to properly contend.
Even as recently as last week with the Knicks’ 3-1 up on the Spurs, another celebrity Knicks fan, Stephen A Smith, touted to Magic Johnson the idea that should the Knicks fall short they should pursue Giannis Antetokounmpo, one of the sport’s true superstars that is likely to leave Milwaukee in the coming days. But Johnson wasn’t having it. The Knicks as currently constructed were perfectly constructed. Instead of being all Broadway, they’ve been more Bronx and Brooklyn and thus representative of the city. Their star isn’t a blue-chip talent. He’s had to grind for everything he’s got, just like his teammates, including two of whom – Josh Hart and Mikael Bridges – he won championships with in college.
In Saturday night's closeout game, Brunson went for 45 points, the same tally Michael Jordan shot in Utah in his famous last game as a Chicago Bull. Afterwards even Victor Wembanyama, at 7’4”, who Brunson repeatedly managed to navigate shots around, had to bow at his altar. “I’m going to work even harder, and above all, keep a fresh mind and maintain control of the game at all times,” he’d say in French upon being asked to elaborate what “the biggest lesson of my life” was. “That’s what really stands out about Jalen Brunson.”
Steph Curry has been a fantastic advertisement and role model for basketball and so many kids who play it. While generations might have wanted to be just like Mike, they couldn’t. With Curry they could because he was so relatable, someone who looked like the scrawny kid next door or they themselves.
The downside of that is a generation has tried to live by the three-point line, chucking up bricks from that range; a mid-range game and post-game was not just neglected but derided. Brunson, through sheer graft and his father’s mentoring, has become a master and timely reminder of such arts. And the perfect retort to those who look quizzically at us hoopers who are vertically challenged.
Yes, our sport is the same one as Jason Brunson’s, the David who slayed Wemby the Goliath. Maybe your own kid should try it.
