Knicks guard Jalen Brunson was a controversial omission from the All-Star Game last season, but it’s going to be hard to keep him out again, writes Peter Botte of The New York Post. Brunson, who received his second Eastern Conference Player of the Week honor on Monday, is averaging career highs with 26.0 points and 6.4 assists per game while shooting a career-best 43.6%% from three-point range. He’s got New York looking like a legitimate contender, with a five-game winning streak that has lifted the team into fourth place in the conference.
Before Tuesday’s game against Portland, Brunson received All-Star support from his own coach, Tom Thibodeau, and from Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups.
“I’m a huge fan of Jalen. I think he’s a winner more than anything,” Billups said. “You can talk about how crafty he is and how he can score and how he’s just a winner. He makes big plays. He makes winning plays. He’s leading the league in taking charges and he’s just a winner.”
- OG Anunoby‘s impact on the Knicks has been historically significant, per Christian Arnold of The New York Post. Anunoby’s plus-111 rating since coming to New York makes him the first player ever to have a combined plus/minus rating higher than 100 in his first five games with a new team. “The ball’s been moving a lot better,” Isaiah Hartenstein said when asked about the difference since Anunoby’s arrival. “Defensively, he’s been doing a great job playing team defense. He makes my life a lot easier, so just having him has been great.”
- Thibodeau gave an indication last week that injured center Mitchell Robinson could be back before the end of the regular season, per Steve Popper of Newsday. The NBA reportedly will deny the Knicks’ request for a disabled player exception regarding Robinson because league officials aren’t convinced that he’ll be sidelined through the required date of June 15. “He will be reevaluated, so probably another four to six weeks and then we’ll have more information,” Thibodeau told reporters on Friday. “… And then whatever they feel the best course is for him, that’s what we’ll do.”
- Off-court issues may be creating a rivalry between the Knicks and Mavericks, tweets Stefan Bondy of The New York Post, who notes that Thursday’s meeting in Dallas will be the first since the Mavs tanked the end of last season to keep their first-round pick from conveying to New York and the first since Mark Cuban blamed Knicks assistant coach Rick Brunson for interfering with Dallas’ attempts to re-sign his son, Jalen.
“Anunoby’s plus-111 rating since coming to New York makes him the first player ever to have a combined plus/minus rating higher than 100 in his first five games with a new team.”
5-0 since trade !!!!!!! Making history ….
Still waiting to be schooled on how much worse Knicks are now ….
Brunson deserves to be an all star…..
I can see Jalen has picked up a lot from playing with Luka. Unfortunately he’s also picked up the hero ball. Like to see him at 10 ast a gm.
rct ????
Cricket Sound link to g.co
10 assists a game? Wishful thinking
link to yardbarker.com
Cuban is FOS. I’ve yet to see any NBA player going through the same timeline of events with his current team that Brunson went through with DAL (and it used to be a relative common timeline), and then re-sign with his current team. DAL had no chance of re-signing Brunson after the deadline, and it was their actions and non-actions to that point that were the reason. None of them had anything to do with Dad or the Knicks.
As far as DAL’s tanking is concerned, tanking, unfortunately, has become part of the game, and it’s done so because the league rewards it. The NYK FO lost out on a pick, maybe, but via a relatively common practice, and only a small dose of it. Truth is DAL never would had any chance to get outside the top 10 (and give their pick to the NYK) if OKC and UTH didn’t tank for all or a good part of the season.
Knicks need one more trade. One more player and they are a championship team