Jalen Brunson just put his name on the second NBA championship in Knicks history. He won the Finals MVP. He dropped 45 in Game 5 at Madison Square Garden. There is a real conversation to be had about whether he is now the greatest player in the franchise’s modern era. His own father just told you he is not having that conversation.
Rick Brunson, the longtime NBA coach and Jalen’s dad, was asked the question this week. Is your son the best Knick ever now? He did not blink. He said no. He said Patrick Ewing is the greatest Knick of all time and nothing his son did changes that, at least not yet.
That is the right answer. It is also a notable answer. Plenty of dads would have grabbed the microphone and made the case for their kid. Plenty of fans wanted Rick to do exactly that. Instead he handed the crown right back to Ewing, who carried the Knicks through the 1990s, made an NBA Finals, never won a ring, and stands as the franchise icon for an entire generation of New Yorkers.
The case for Brunson is real. He has now done the one thing Ewing never did. He won a championship in New York. He delivered the first one since 1973. He did it in a city that had been waiting for half a century for someone to come along and do exactly what he just did. If the only metric is rings in a Knicks uniform, the comparison is over.
Most metrics are not that simple. Ewing made 11 All-Star teams. He averaged 21 and 9 across his Knicks career. He was an All-Defensive selection at the position. He was the franchise. When Knicks fans of a certain age picture the team, they picture No. 33 with the gold chain.
Brunson, by contrast, has been a Knick for only four seasons. He has made three All-Star teams. He is the face of the team, but he has not yet had the career-long body of work that Ewing did. Give him another five or six years of this and the conversation gets a lot more interesting.
Here is the part Rick Brunson got exactly right. The greatest Knick ever conversation should not be decided in the hours after a Game 5 win. You let the season settle. You let the parade happen. You let Brunson have his moment without flattening Ewing’s legacy in the process.
If Brunson wins another title, the conversation changes. If he wins three, there is no conversation. Ewing himself would probably hand the crown over at that point.
For now, the smartest move was the one Brunson’s own dad just made. Celebrate the moment. Honor the past. Let history figure out the rest. Patrick Ewing is the greatest Knick of all time. Jalen Brunson is the guy who just helped New York throw the biggest parade in 53 years. Both things can be true.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
