The ESPYs are Wednesday night on ESPN, and the network already dropped one of the bigger awards a day early. Jalen Brunson won Best Player. That part is official. And it’s hard to find anyone who argues with it.
Kendrick Perkins, the former NBA center turned ESPN talking head, came out and made the case better than most. He went on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and basically said: who else was it supposed to be?
“Look at that run that he had,” Perkins said. “He arguably had one of the greatest individual runs in NBA as far as winning the championship, averaging 32 points in the NBA Finals, having that epic comeback in Game 4, and in Game 5, 45 points to close it out on the road… and the story, a second round pick going to New York, making them relevant again, bringing that franchise back to life… tell me who else was supposed to get it.”
Brunson’s playoff run was historic by any measure
The Knicks went 16-3 in last year’s playoffs. After falling behind 2-1 to Atlanta in the first round, they rattled off 15 wins in 16 games. That’s not a typo. Brunson averaged over 30 points in the Finals against San Antonio, dropped 45 in the clincher on the road, and basically turned himself into a New York sports legend in about three weeks.
He was a second-round pick. That’s the part that still feels like a movie script. The Knicks hadn’t won a title in 53 years. Then Brunson shows up, plays at an MVP level, and now he’s got a ring and a trophy to put next to it.
Timing of the announcement raised some eyebrows
The weird part is that ESPN announced the winner the day before the actual show. Usually you wait for the broadcast, build a little suspense, get people to tune in. But hey, maybe they figured nobody was going to be shocked by this one. Brunson was that dominant.
Is he the best player in the NBA right now? Probably not. That debate still involves guys like Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Joel Embiid. But the Best Player ESPY has never been strictly about ranking the talent. It’s about who had the best season, the biggest moments, the most compelling story. And on all three fronts, Brunson delivered.
The Knicks are champions again. Brunson is a New York icon now. And the ESPY voters looked at the field, looked at what he did, and decided the choice was obvious. Perkins just said it out loud.
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