Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks are currently in the process of preparing for the upcoming second round playoff series vs the Indiana Pacers, which is set to begin on Monday evening at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks got to this point by beating the Philadelphia 76ers in six games in what was the most entertaining series of the first round, as Brunson struggled mightily for the first three games but came alive with three straight forty point games down the stretch to lead his team to victory.
In fact, so elite has been Brunson's play that some franchise legends have made some brazen claims about his place in franchise history despite the relatively limited amount of success he has achieved so far, including Charles Oakley, who recently claimed that Brunson is already the greatest Knicks player since Walt Frazier.
“And Brunson, I'm telling you, Brunson's the best thing since Walt Frazier. I know somebody gonna say, ‘What about Patrick (Ewing) and Carmelo (Anthony)?' OK, they didn't do this. I mean, you know, they got a chance to show. We need more players. Brunson's playing without Julius (Randle), and what he's doing man, hey, it's incredible. Keep doing it,” said Oakley on a recent appearance on SiriusXM NBA Radio, per Paul Kasabian of Bleacher Report.
Now, former point guard Mark Jackson is firing back at that audacious assertion.
“We love Oak…but Oak made Jalen Brunson's greatest New York Knicks basketball player since Clyde Frazier. Time out. Are you kidding me? I love you Oak, but what are we doing? Let me introduce you to the greatest, not just since Clyde Frazier, the greatest New York Knicks basketball player of all time,” said Jackson on the Come and Talk 2 Me podcast, via New York Basketball on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.
“That includes everybody. You include everybody that ever played in the blue and orange and you put them on the draft board, the number one pick is Patrick Ewing.”
Is Jalen Brunson a top five Knick?
Charles Oakley's assertion that Brunson is the greatest Knicks player since Walt Frazier was obviously a prisoner of the moment hot take that can be easily forgiven. However, the question of whether Brunson cracks the top five in franchise history is certainly an interesting point to consider.
Brunson has now made it as far as Carmelo Anthony ever did in a Knicks jersey (the second round of the playoffs), and has done so on twice as many occasions as Anthony (two against one). If the Knicks, as they are expected to do, are able to break through and make the conference finals this season, it will be the first time they will have done so in over two decades.
However, even then, Brunson would need at least one Finals appearance (highly unlikely with the Boston Celtics lurking in the East) to approach the Ewing conversation, and even that might not be enough to actually put him in the number one spot.
Knicks fans are likely better off just enjoying the moment without the need to compare it to the past.
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