Will Jalen Brunson make it out of the regular season alive?

If you play for Coach Thibs, you know what you’re into: a whole lot of run if you’re part of his circle of trust.

And even if you’re out of said circle, there is always a chance of a few injuries impacting your teammates without anybody or anything seeming to know how to stop them, the ultimate outcome being the same: you better get your cardio in line for what’s ahead.

Before Mitchell Robinson, Julius Randle, and OG Anunoby went down injured in December (Mitch) and late January (JR and OG), Tom Thibodeau was already using his usual top-heavy minute-allocation pattern. I have split the season into two halves at the point of Randle/OG injuries, two they have yet to return from after completing their respective rehab processes.

Pre-January 28th Top-MPG Knicks

• Jalen Brunson: 35.6
• Julius Randle: 35.4
• OG Anunoby: 34.2
• Mitchell Robinson: 29.2
• Josh Hart: 28.2
• Isaiah Hartenstein: 25.3

That’s three players logging 34+ minutes per game, all of them starters, as well as two more in the 25-to-29 clip splitting minutes in the starting lineup (Robinson did until he got injured, then giving way to Hartenstein), and only one (Josh Hart; in italics to denote his reserve role) who logged more than 25+ MPG while playing off the bench in 39 of the 45 pre-Jan. 28 games.

Post-January 28th Top-MPG Knicks

• Precious Achiuwa: 39.8
• Josh Hart: 39.2
• Donte DiVincenzo: 38.9
• Jalen Brunson: 37.3
• Bojan Bogdanovic: 27.7
• Isaiah Hartenstein: 25.0

Once again, after the Knicks lost Randle and OG to injuries, Thibs kept a tight heavy-minutes rotation down to only five players getting more than 25 MPG a pop. Nothing changed, right? Wrong, because the devil is in the details, and the numbers don’t lie.

If you check the top minute-eaters of the pre-injuries stint, only two topped 35 MPG but they barely did so without even reaching a 36 mark before Jan. 28. Now, however, things have changed and all four top minute-eaters are getting 37+ MPG nightly. Only Bojan Bogdanovic has played a reserve role while getting 25+ MPG, and that’s in only a few games as he just joined the team after the trade deadline in early February.

In other words, the banged-up dudes can’t come back soon enough if the Knicks want to reach the postseason with some gas left in their collective tank.

Although astonishing and a bit shocking, I don’t think it is that worrying to have someone like Precious Achiuwa or Josh Hart stringing nine games of 30+ minutes played from Feb. 1 through last weekend. It’s surprising because there are only a few players league-wide who have gotten that playing time in the same span, and barring three players from hapless clubs (Charlotte, Memphis, and Atlanta) the rest (nine of them) are all franchise players.

Of the 40 players across the NBA who have played 30+ minutes in at least 10 games from Jan. 28 through last weekend, consecutive games this month, four of them belong to the Knicks. Only two non-contending teams have three (Atlanta and Chicago) and no other team has more than three names in that shortlist.

Again, it’s not that Achiuwa and Hart will be needed for more than 15-to-22 minutes in the playoffs assuming everybody is healthy then and there, but they will be a bit taxed come mid-April and May.

The worrying thing here comes down to one and only one development: Jalen Brunson’s heavy minutes and usage, and the weight that has been put on his shoulders as there is no other super-talented player in this team right now capable of thrusting New York to wins day in day out. And you bet JB will need to keep going for as long as the Knicks keep playing (regular- and post-season) basketball this year.

Top MPG Players with Above-Average (>20%) USG% since Jan. 28

Check that list, and you’ll see how only three players who appear in it are expected to play postseason basketball. One of them hoops in Dallas, and the other two do so in New York. Again, it’s either no-postseason-franchise players and New York Knicks—except for Luka Doncic.

Of course, having a Usage Rate above 20% is cool and literally above average, but it’s not quite up to the standards of a superstar/franchise/elite-level player. Ramp up the slider to a USG% >26% (an arbitrary number but one that reasonably covers all superstars in the league) and things start to look daunting.

Top MPG Players with Superstar USG% (>26%) USG% since Jan. 28

Luka and Brunson are the only two players in this super-usage group with 37+ MPG averages in the last month. Durant and Maxey are close, but the former certainly counts on many teammates of similarly elite level in Devin Booker and Bradley Beal. Jayson Tatum and LeBron James can say the same to different extents, and Jerami Grant will be sitting home in May. Outside of Brunson, only Tyrese Maxey is in a kinda comparable situation.

Now, here comes the curveball. Flip the leaderboard from minutes to actual usage, and you get a better and more apt idea of how overtaxed and hyperused JB has been of late. Because at the end of the day, hell, you can spend 40 minutes on the court doing simply a bunch of cardio, but that has nothing to do with actually having to carry the team forward on a play-by-play basis to no end.

Top USG% Players with 35+ MPG since Jan. 28

There are 33 players averaging 35+ MPG in the NBA since Jan. 28. In an ideal world, that’d be (almost) one per team in the league, only we know that’s not the case because Atlanta, Chicago, and New York have three, four, and four players each (33% of the total field).

Do I need to introduce you to the leader?

Brunson is the only player using more than 34% of all of his team’s possessions. Only four other players have USG% rates above 30 percent.

Maxey, who is probably in the most similar situation (explained above) to Brunson because of Joel Embiid’s injury, is finishing 29.6% of the Sixers' offensive actions.

As things stand, Brunson is averaging exactly 36 MPG over the full season. In NBA history, among players with 36+ MPG, there have only been 19 player-seasons with that individual logging a USG% rate of 35 percent or higher. The list of names is insane.

And if you reduce it to the last 15 years, only six player-seasons make the cut:

• 2019 James Harden: 40.5%
• 2023 Luka Doncic: 37.6%
• 2020 James Harden: 36.5%
• 2024 Luka Doncic: 37.6%
• 2012 Kobe Bryant: 35.7%
• 2013 Carmelo Anthony: 35.6%

For one, you see a little modern-day pattern here in both Harden and Doncic appearing twice in the list, which makes them (mostly Luka) unsurprising names featuring in this season’s list. For two, Kobe Bryant clogged the pre-2010 list including posting the second-largest USG% in 2006. For three, do we really think of Brunson (or want that to the be the case) as 2013 Melo, when he led the Knicks by himself and had little help in lifting NYK to the ECSF?

There is no solution to this Brunson minute-conundrum because Thibs is Thibs, someone has to man the Knicks point, and there aren’t many talented (seriously) players in New York’s roster that can take over any and every game and earn the team a dub.

I’m not saying that there is a way to solve this “problem,” and perhaps this is not even a problem and when Randle and OG and Mitch return they will do so freshest than they could have ever imagined, but I for one fear Brunson might reach the postseason already burnt.

Here’s hoping that is not the case. Fingers crossed. Better (and healthier) days ahead.