CHARLESTON, S.C. — To fully appreciate how Jalen Brunson has managed to vault himself into such rare and rarefied air in New York City, it’s best to appreciate the small details. Like this:
Monday afternoon, media day at the MSG training facility in Tarrytown, Brunson is sitting at a table alongside RJ Barrett and Julius Randle. Someone asks him to talk about his participation in the FIBA World Cup, which started promisingly for the U.S. and ended in fourth place — and, worse, with a loss to Barrett’s Team Canada in the consolation game.
“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “Nope,” he repeated. “RJ can.”
“I had a great time,” Barrett said, giggling. “Bragging rights in the locker room!”
That filled the room with laughter, and even Brunson offered a thin trace of a smile. But it came with an understated and understood edge to it: To Brunson, this wasn’t the least bit funny. To Brunson — who had said of his play in the tournament after Germany knocked the U.S. out: “I was terrible, plain and simple” — there is nothing remotely funny about losing.
If you ever played basketball, you know well that the residue of disappointment always lasts far longer than the fleeting narcotic of success. All across New York are players still haunted by terrible beats in the playground, in CYO, in AAU, in intramurals, at the Y. You wear those setbacks like medals in your basketball soul. And recognize the look of the others who do likewise.
Brunson wears that look. It’s why he has become — side-by-side with Aaron Judge — the most treasured and talked-about athlete we have in New York right now. Judge is oversized as a baseball player at 6-foot-7, 282 pounds, and Brunson is undersized as a basketball player at 6-2, 190, but they share all of the important qualities that make them irresistible to our city.
1. They are very, very good at what they do.
2. When they talk about winning being the only thing, they mean it.
3. There is little pretense to them, despite all the zeroes in their paychecks. They see themselves as working stiffs, punching a clock just like you and me.
George Steinbrenner liked to put it this way: “New Yorkers fight for everything, every single day. They fight for taxis. They fight to get a spot on the elevator. You have to have that spirit if you’re going to make it here.”
Judge has that. Brunson? He wouldn’t know any other way.
“New York is a great place, but you have to have the right mindset here,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said early Tuesday afternoon, after the Knicks’ first official practice at McAllister Field House on the campus of The Citadel. “He’s always been in big pressure situations back in Chicago in high school, at Villanova, then the pros. He’s built for it.”
Brunson put it this way on March 1, after he’d played an almost surreal game against the Nets at the Garden, 39 points on 15-for-18 shooting from the floor, 5-for-6 from 3: “In New York, the crowd feeds off the way you play. And you can’t help but feed off them.”
It was Brunson who cleared his throat and spoke out on behalf of Thibodeau when the season started tilting sideways a bit last winter. It was Brunson who all but reprimanded those who were questioning Julius Randle’s status as the team’s alpha dog a few weeks later when he insisted, “This is Julius’ team. We have his back every day.”
It was Brunson who, in memory if not fact, hit just about every important shot last year to the very end, when he dropped 41 points in Game 6 at Miami and single-handedly tried to buy the Knicks two extra days of basketball season — then steadfastly declared: “I have to be better than that.”
Yeah. New York can embrace a guy like that, adopt a player like that. You bet.
“I knew the team was going to love him,” Brunson’s longtime running mate, Josh Hart, said. “No surprise they took an instant liking to him in this city.”
Said Thibodeau: “He’s mentally tough, which is probably the most important thing. If he has a tough game he bounces right back. He always has a strong face, like he can handle just about anything that comes his way. His competitive spirit is off the chart, he thinks on his feet, has the ability to make plays, has character … all the things you value he has them.”
He cares as much as you do. He burns to win, he’s not going to apologize for that. And he has a long memory when he loses. If you and Jalen Brunson ever try to get the last spot on that elevator the Boss used to talk about, it’s best you’re wearing comfortable shoes. Because you’ll be taking the stairs.
