Will an NBA title make Jalen Brunson the most-beloved New York athlete ever?
Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz are joined by CBS Sports host and “Cousins” podcast host Ashley Nicole Moss to discuss what winning an NBA championship would do for New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson ’s legacy as a New York athlete. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
When you see a guy who gets beat up and, and banged up and doesn't quit and continues to fight, it makes you wanna step up your game as his teammate, and it makes you wanna fight for him.
It's the equivalent, I feel like, of having a really good coach in the locker room who just knows what to say and when to say it.
And Jalen Brunson's a guy who leads by example.
Yes, he's vocal, but I think that also a lot of the times he's a guy who's leading by example, and it just makes everybody else around him wanna step up their game.
It's, you know, Jalen Brunson's tough as nails, and I think we have seen that in so many different instances, but he is only human.
He is just a man after all.
And when he went down both those times, Knicks fans everywhere were, like, praying to every single god possible, "Please don't let this happen this way.
Please don't let this happen this way."
Because it would be a very Knicks thing to happen that we get this far and we lose Jalen Brunson in just a crazy fashion.
But thankfully it wasn't that.
And, I just think that he continues to show he embodies what it means to be a New York Knick.
It's the grit.
It's the determination.
It's essentially everything that the city of New York represents in one person.
If this Knicks team, with Brunson playing like he did last night, in the key moments, wins the championship, where does that sort of put Jalen Brunson in the hierarchy of all-time greats in New York sports history?
I mean, it might put him at number one, if you ask me.
And yes, people will be like, "What about Derek Jeter?"
You know, "What about, Patrick Ewing?
What about Clyde Frazier?"
I mean, we're talking about a player who would have brought a championship to New York as a New York's basketball team, and yes, I know the Nets are technically a New York basketball team.
We don't count them in New York, all right?
There's only one basketball team- and it's the New York Knicks.
To bring a championship back to the Knicks since the '70s, I mean, I don't know how you can put anybody above him.
We're talking about, you know, a player who came to New York and everybody doubted him, said he was too small, said he was overpaid, and just brick by brick, season by season, was working towards this very thing, and didn't allow the outside noise to kind of take him off that track.
And h- like I said, embodies what it means to be a New Yorker.
So yeah, we have the Yankees and all they do, or all they used to do, was win, win, win.
So yeah, Derek Jeter, the captain, is goated in New York.
And, you know, Aaron Judge is kind of borderline 'cause, you know, sometimes he comes through, sometimes he doesn't.
But Jalen Brunson, in my opinion, I mean, he would automatically go to number one to bri- if he brings a championship to the New York Knicks, the first since the '70s
