The NBA is a league of 7-foot stars and 10-foot egos. This year the championship was won by a team with neither.
The New York Knicks won the title for the first time in 53 years, and there is a lesson in the victory for every business person in the way they did it and who led the way.
Deep in my gut I hate today’s New York of Mamdani and the inherent belief so many Big Appler have, that they are from the only city that really counts.
But this Knicks team is different. They have Jalen Brunson as their star, a 6’1″ guard who can barely get off the ground, who speaks quietly and modestly but is undeniably the leader, the glue, the STAR who made the team a champion.
Brunson first drew attention when he played one year of high school basketball in the affluent northern suburbs of Chicago for Adlai Stevenson High School.
Brunson transferred to the school, not because it was a national powerhouse but because his Dad took a job in the neighborhood as an assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls NBA team.
Jalen led the school to the State Championship, and was considered the top player in Illinois even though he was short and couldn’t jump. He was a winner, a leader, and he scored when needed.
Rather than sifting through dozens of college offers of scholarships, he simply notified Villanova and their outstanding coach, Jay Wright, that he wanted to be a Wildcat. Jalen’s father played for Villanova and he wanted to also. Wright was happy to oblige.
With Jalen Brunson coming, other top players wanted to join him, including two current Knicks teammates Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges. Donte DiVincenzo also played at Villanova then and the Knicks before being traded.
Villanova won the NCAA Championship in 2016 and 2018 while the four of them played there.
You virtually never see a team that has four players who played together in college, but this is a way to build a team that plays like a ‘team.’
Brunson, even after leading Villanova, was not regarded as a great pro prospect. “Too small, can’t jump, isn’t fast,” was the verdict on a guy who had been the leader at Villanova. He was the 33rd draft pick by Dallas, owned by Mark Cuban from Shark Tank.
Cuban figured Brunson would be a nice complementary guard for a team built around Dirk Nowitzki, who was near the end of his career and Luka Dončić who Dallas shrewdly moved up in the draft to nab at #3.
That Dallas draft is considered now as one of the best in NBA history to get Dončić and Brunson in the same year. Yet they never won a Championship together, and Brunson signed with the Knicks in 2022. Dončić now plays with the LA Lakers and LeBron James.
By 2025-26, the Knicks had reassembled Hart, Bridges, and Brunson and shed Tom Thibodeaux, a good coach, but neurotically intense, for Mike Brown, a former player who was much calmer and less overwhelming. Brown added Jalen Brunson’s Dad as his top assistant. They also acquired Karl Anthony Townes, a big burly scorer.
Brown let Jalen Brunson run the team on the floor, and the combination of players worked beautifully.
New York sailed through the Playoffs and faced San Antonio, led by Victor Wembanyama, their incredibly talented 7’4″ superstar, and several excellent young complementary players. San Antonio led in every game, but the Knicks pushed past them to win the Finals, 4 games to 1. In one game they overcame a 29-point deficit in the second half to win the game.
The fifth game, played in San Antonio, was close, but again Brunson took charge, scored 45 points, 13 straight himself in the fourth quarter, to win the game 94-90 for the Knicks.
The guy who was thought to be too small for the NBA, who couldn’t jump, who wanted to go to the school where his Dad went, was the Finals MVP, with his father on the bench. He showed that a “team” without a superstar but with chemistry and leadership, could go all the way.
Question: Who is your favorite sports star?
