Knicks head coach Mike Brown believes Jalen Brunson isn’t just playing like an All-Star — he’s playing like the league’s Most Valuable Player.
“To me, we’re talking MVP,” Brown said after practice at the Knicks’ training facility on Thursday. “When you look around the league, and you’re talking about an MVP candidate, you’re talking about probably the top-three teams in each conference. You’ve gotta look at their main guy.”
Through 24 games, Brunson has been exactly that: The top player on a Knicks team aiming to compete for a title. New York entered Saturday’s NBA Cup semifinal against the Orlando Magic with a 17–7 record, trailing only the East-leading Detroit Pistons (19–5) in the conference. Boston (15–9), Orlando (15–10), and Toronto (15–11) were packed together behind them for the No. 3 seed.
Out West, the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder (24–1) have lapped the field, while the Lakers, Nuggets, Rockets, and Spurs occupy the next tier. That matters to Brown, whose MVP criteria is rooted in team success.
“That boils down to Cade [Cunningham] and Jalen, Luka [Doncic] and Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander], and I don’t know who’s third in each conference, but whoever’s third,” Brown said. “Those are the names that you’ve start with and end with because somebody’s gotta score, somebody’s gotta rebound, and usually if you’re a team that’s a Play-In team, or you’re out of the playoffs or in the bottom echelon of the playoffs, you’re not impacting [winning] at the level that the guys that I just mentioned are.”
Brunson has been the engine behind the Knicks’ rise. He’s averaging 28.3 points and 6.3 assists on 48 percent shooting, and his plus-9.2 net rating ranks third among all players averaging 25 or more points — behind only the last two MVP winners: Nikola Jokic (plus-10.2) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (plus-15.4).
“And so for me, Jalen is just doing what he gets paid to do,” Brown said. “He’s an MVP candidate in this business, and he’s just showing it again to everybody, and hopefully, you guys and the rest of the world take notice of it.”
The competition, however, isn’t some cake walk.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s Thunder have been all-but unbeatable with one loss in 25 games. Jokic is once again bordering on a 30-point triple-double. Luka Doncic is averaging something close to a 35-point triple-double. And Cunningham has both the East’s best record and nightly triple-double numbers of his own.
Brunson, for all his production and winning, has never received a first-, second-, or third-place MVP vote — even after leading New York to back-to-back 50-win seasons. If he earns votes this spring, he would become the first Knick to do so since Carmelo Anthony finished third in 2013 behind LeBron James and Kevin Durant.
Before that, Patrick Ewing earned MVP consideration in the Knicks’ 1990s heyday. Bernard King, Walt ‘Clyde’ Frazier, and Dave DeBusschere also received votes during their eras. Only one Knick has ever won the award outright: Willis Reed in 1970.
Yet Brunson’s case is growing by the week. And if the Knicks keep winning at this clip, Brown may be right — the conversation can start anywhere, but there’s a chance it might end right here in New York.