Jalen Brunson Is Good but the Knicks Need Great

This might be an unpopular opinion in New York, but someone has to say it.

This season, he is averaging 26.2 points per game, ninth in the league in scoring, and a three-time All-Star. The numbers are solid. But calling him the face of the franchise, in the way that term actually means something, is getting harder to say out loud.

Every contending team right now has a player the whole league revolves around. Luka Dončić just scored 100 points across two consecutive games for the Los Angeles Lakers. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has scored 30 or more in 130 straight games. Anthony Edwards is one of the top three scorers in the NBA.

Cade Cunningham swept the Knicks three times this season and made it look routine. Nikola Jokić is leading his team in points, rebounds, and assists. These are players their franchises are genuinely built around, players who show up and take over regardless of the opponent.

Brunson is good. But the Knicks need him to be that guy, and right now he is not

Jalen Brunson Needs to Step Up Before the Playoffs Arrive

The New York Knicks are 46-25 and sitting third in the East. That sounds fine until you look at who they have been playing. Their last five games were against the Jazz, the Pacers twice, the Warriors, and the Nets. Combined, those teams have some of the worst records in the league this season.

A genuine contender with a true franchise star should be rolling through this stretch, padding the lead, building confidence heading into April.

Instead, the Knicks have been scraping. They trailed the Jazz by 18. They nearly blew a 14-point lead to a Nets team that had lost 16 of their last 18. They needed a second-half comeback to beat a Warriors squad missing Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Jimmy Butler.

Brunson had his chances to change that story. With both Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart out against a 15-win Pacers team, he finished with 29 points in a 101-92 win that felt like a grind from start to finish. Against the Jazz with Hart out, he scored 28 while his team dug themselves an 18-point hole.

These were the games to go for 40 and remind everyone why he is the man in New York. He settled for good instead of great.

Even Brunson himself seemed to sense something was off. In a recent Topps video, he jokingly called himself a player on the decline, and while the room laughed, his March scoring average, sitting at 23.8 points per game, made the joke feel a little too close to the truth.

Yes, he saves games. He dragged the Knicks back from 21 down against a depleted Golden State squad. He hit the key baskets late to hold off a Brooklyn Nets team that had lost 16 of its last 18. The clutch gene is real and nobody is taking that away from him.

But here is the uncomfortable part. With an elite franchise player, those games should never need saving in the first place. A Nets team sitting at 17-53 should not be within one point in the fourth quarter. That is not a role player problem. That falls on the star.

The slow starts are a real and growing concern. The starters have been setting the wrong tone from the opening tip repeatedly, and the numbers reflect it badly at this point in the season. Brunson is the one the offense runs through. He touches the ball more than anyone on this roster.

So when the Knicks come out flat and find themselves chasing games against opponents they should be burying, that starts with him. Saving the team from a 21-point hole is impressive. Not being in that hole in the first place against that kind of team is what a franchise player does.

The playoffs will be here before anyone is ready. New coach, new rotations, adjustments still being made; all fair context. But Brunson is Brunson regardless of who draws up the plays.

The difference between a deep playoff run and another early exit might simply come down to which version of Jalen Brunson shows up in April.