Jalen Brunson, one of the NBA’s most prolific scorers, ascendant playoff leaders and face of the New York Knicks, was honored as such in the finale of ESPN’s Top-100 player ranking.
The network’s insiders finally revealed their insight as to the game’s top-10 players entering the 2025-26 NBA season, and threw Brunson into a distinguished class of MVP candidates and surefire Hall-of-Famers.
He was listed as the tenth-best guy in the league, out-performing last year’s No. 12 ranking with another season of stellar offensive play.
“Last season brought Brunson’s second consecutive All-Star and All-NBA second-team selections. In just three years, Brunson has moved himself onto the short list of the best players ever to wear the blue and orange,” ESPN’s writers said.
“That also included leading the Knicks to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years and to a third straight year with at least one playoff series victory, which hadn’t happened since the glory days of the 1990s and early 2000s.
The only acceptable outcome for Brunson and the Knicks this season, though, is to fully break through and reach the NBA Finals for the first time this century.”
New Yorkers may quibble with some of the nine names listed above the Knicks’ captain, but everyone in or above his tier can at least match his championship upside. Outside of Victor Wembanyama and Anthony Edwards, two of the league’s premier up-and-comers, and Luka Dončić, who visited the Finals just last summer, everyone ahead of Brunson has both regular season and Finals MVPs to their names.
Nikola Jokić’s got three MVP awards to his name and only ever seems to get better, while Shai-Gilgeous Alexander’s coming off of running the award-tour gauntlet as the most recent championship-winner. Giannis Antetokounmpo similarly isn’t leaving this distinction anytime soon, with the Knicks having devoted a healthy chunk of their own summer to trying to lure the east’s best player over to their side.
The older players are who Brunson should be looking for as the likeliest to phase out ahead of him, with LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry able to parlay their status onto the highest rungs of any list they desire in approaching or, James’ case, crawling deeper into their 40s.
Brunson’s more consistent of an every-night performer than James and Curry, while Durant’s still held onto his scoring like few before him have.
But even as he stacks increasingly-longer postseason bids, he’ll continue coming up short to the old guard and the perennial MVP candidates as long as he goes without the championship run that now looks to be at an all-time attainable level for New York’s enhanced roster.
