The Case for Jalen Brunson as the Greatest Knick — and Why Perkins Might Be Right

Kendrick Perkins dropped a take on Monday that would have sounded ridiculous two years ago. Now it sounds like the most obvious thing in the world.

Jalen Brunson, the man who walked into Madison Square Garden without a billboard and left with a championship, is being called the greatest Knick of all time. Perkins went there on ESPN, via SportsCenter on X, and the internet didn’t laugh. It nodded.

That’s the part that matters.

The Knicks just won their first title since 1973, closing out a Finals run that felt inevitable once Brunson put the team on his back in Game 5. The box score says 45 points. What the box score doesn’t capture is the weight of every bucket — the way Brunson kept New York breathing while everyone around him went cold. That was the moment, and it belongs in the rafters with the greats.

But here’s the thing: calling Brunson the greatest Knick isn’t just about one game. It’s about the context around him.

Willis Reed played through torn thigh muscles. Walt “Clyde” Frazier made the fashion and the steals look effortless. Patrick Ewing carried a franchise on his bad ankles through the 1990s, got within a possession of a title in 1994, and never caught the ring. Those are legends. No one is erasing them.

What Brunson did, though, is change the temperature of the entire organization. He arrived after the Knicks’ disaster of 2021-22 — a season that ended without playoffs and with the franchise looking like a punchline in a league full of contenders. Within two years, he turned that punchline into a parade. He didn’t just win. He rewired the culture of a city that was tired of being patient.

Perkins called it first on air, and the argument has legs. Brunson’s Game 5 performance already sits in Knicks lore like Reed’s 1970 entrance or Frazier’s 36-point masterpiece. The difference is that Brunson’s still got years left. New York will chase a repeat next season, and if he delivers again, the debate stops being a debate at all.

The Knicks haven’t had a player who could carry both the history and the hope of a city like this since Ewing. And now they’ve got one who brought the trophy home.