Jalen Brunson's Case For a Top-Five Player Is Better Than You Think

Jalen Brunson’s reputation hasn’t quite caught up to his actual accomplishments in the NBA.

With Brunson, there appears to be a gap between where fans rank him and where he should actually rank, thanks to an increasingly ironclad resume.

Recently, NBA media personality Josh Eberley circulated a poll allowing fans to rank the best players in the NBA.

As of September 10, the poll had collected over 250,000 votes and concluded in this order:

Luka Doncic
Nikola Jokic
Victor Wembanyama
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Anthony Edwards
Cade Cunningham
Jayson Tatum
Stephen Curry
Jalen Brunson

After 250,000 votes. . . The top-100 results!

1) Luka Doncic
2) Nikola Jokic
3) Victor Wembanyama
4) Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
5) Giannis Antetokounmpo
6) Anthony Edwards
7) Cade Cunningham
8) Jayson Tatum
9) Stephen Curry
10) Jalen Brunson
11) Kawhi Leonard
12) Tyrese Maxey
13)…
— Josh Eberley 🇨🇦 (@JoshEberley) September 10, 2026

Now, this is just a fan ranking, one with some obvious biases (does anyone really think Luka Doncic is the best player in the league?). Who knows whose hands this poll got into? Fans have famously skewed NBA voting before.

But this poll is not the only ranking that puts Brunson surprisingly low. HoopsHype ranked point guards ahead of the 2026-27 season and put Brunson fourth, behind Gilgeous-Alexander, Doncic, and Cunningham.

The Ringer’s NBA player ranking has Brunson fifth following the Knicks’ championship. However, prior to that, Brunson had never finished within The Ringer’s top 10.

This is not to say being ranked ninth, 10th, or 11th is some sort of slight; it’s just that by all the usual metrics by which we evaluate players’ greatness, Brunson should rank highly. Yet he is still largely not thought of as one of the league’s elite elite players.

Even as a Knicks fan, I sort of understand this sentiment. Brunson is not physically imposing, and he doesn’t dominate games from a physical standpoint. He falls somewhere between below-average and passable on defense. He has to work hard for his baskets and, although he is a very good passer, his size limits some of his playmaking. Brunson doesn’t necessarily feel like a top-five player.

With all that said, when it comes to the standards we judge the best players by—individual accolades, notable moments, and team success—Brunson passes with flying colors. Brunson’s case for a top-five, or even a top-three, player is better than you’d think.

Brunson's individual accolades rank highly

Since 2023-24, Brunson has been a three-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA team member. The only other players to make All-NBA in each of the last three years are Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

The NBA’s 65-game threshold obviously impacts these awards and teams. However, in an NBA landscape where availability is highly valued— “the best ability is availability!” —and injuries can be treated like a character flaw, Brunson’s consistent presence on the court is noteworthy.

Of course, plenty of players have made three or more consecutive All-NBA teams, but over the past three NBA seasons, Brunson regularly ranks as one of the best and most available players.

Furthermore, Brunson has the statistical profile to back up that he has been among the league’s best players during this span. Since 2023-24, only four players have averaged at least 25 points and 6 assists per game while shooting better than 37% from three: Jokic, Gilgeous-Alexander, Doncic, and Brunson. Brunson does have the lowest effective field-goal percentage of these four players, but he holds other advantages: second-most games played of the four (216), second-best three-point percentage (38.5%), and the fewest free throws per game (6.3).

It should be quite obvious that the best player on the reigning champions isn’t just putting up empty stats, but nonetheless, it’s worth noting that during this same three-year span, Brunson ranks sixth in Basketball-Reference’s Win Shares and 10th in Value Over Replacement Player.

Brunson drives winning

Some NBA championships mean more than others, and the Knicks’ 2026 title is a massive boost to Brunson’s legacy.

Brunson not only joined an elite list of “small guards” to lead their teams to titles—joining players like Stephen Curry and Isiah Thomas on the vaunted, but unofficial list—but he proved himself as a legitimate “1A” star that can be built around.

Since joining the Knicks, Brunson has proven to be a player who legitimately drives winning. Consider that since joining the Knicks in 2022-23, the Knicks have won the fifth-most regular-season games in the league. Not all of that is due to Brunson, of course, but Brunson has led the revitalization of the Knicks into a year-in, year-out contender (that alone is its own argument for Brunson's greatness).

Looking to the postseason, over the past four seasons, Brunson and the Knicks have won eight total playoff series, culminating in a championship this past season.

No other player in The Ringer’s top 20 matches that total. Some notable numbers among other elite NBA players since ‘22-23:

Gilgeous-Alexander: 7 playoff series wins
Jokic: 6
Wembanyama: 3
Doncic: 4
Tatum: 7
Antetokounmpo: 0
Edwards: 5

Again, team success can’t be solely pinned on one player, but in the NBA, where “ring culture” plays an outsized role in evaluating players’ legacies—particularly in an era where the regular season has become devalued—Brunson’s continued playoff success has to be considered. Over the past four seasons, he has been one of the NBA’s winningest players.

"Captain Clutch" takes it to another level in the postseason

It’s not enough just to win in the NBA; there needs to be indelible moments along the way.

In his four years with the Knicks, Brunson has provided plenty of those moments.

It’s not just that Brunson, the 2024-25 Clutch Player of the Year, has given Knicks fans some all-time moments in the postseason—Brunson has been a historic playoff performer whose name now sits in the record books.

Over the past three seasons, Brunson has led the entire NBA in total points scored and points per game in the playoffs. Along the way, he’s hit some meaningful milestones.

Brunson has had scoring outbursts that put him among the best in NBA history. In the 2024 playoffs, Brunson scored 40-plus points four straight times, becoming the first player since Michael Jordan in 1993 to accomplish that feat. He also recorded 30-plus points and 5-plus assists in five consecutive games, joining Jordan, Oscar Robertson, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James as the only players to do so.

Brunson has hit too many big, clutch shots in the playoffs to count—including a series-winner in 2025—but there is statistical evidence that shows Brunson is one of the great clutch performers in NBA history. As Yahoo’s Tom Haberstroh argued, Brunson just finished off perhaps the most clutch playoff run in NBA history. Some key stats:

Brunson led the NBA in clutch points in the 2026 playoffs, despite not playing four entire fourth quarters. He also led the NBA in clutch scoring in 2025 and 2024.
Brunson joined Dirk Nowitzki (2011) as the only players since 1996 (when play-by-play stats were first recorded) to average 9.9 or more fourth-quarter points in the conference semifinals and beyond and win a championship.
Brunson averaged .574 points per fourth-quarter possession during this year’s playoffs. Only five players since the 1996-97 season have averaged 0.5 points per fourth-quarter possession in the playoffs: Stephen Curry, Michael Jordan, James Harden, Kobe Bryant, and Brunson. Brunson has done it three times.

Brunson’s 2026 Finals performance is worthy of its own breakdown. On the game’s biggest stage, Brunson routinely came through for his team. Brunson struggled with his shot across Games 1 and 2, but came up with several huge baskets when it mattered most. Brunson scored 13 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter of Game 1, including go-ahead and game-icing baskets in the final two minutes. He also hit a game-tying shot with 40 seconds to play in Game 2, and the game-sealing free throws with 9.5 seconds to play.

As Brunson tends to do, he found his shot as the series went on. Across Games 3 -5, Brunson averaged 37.7 points on 48% shooting, 52% from three, to go with 5 assists per game. Brunson scored 45 of the Knicks’ 94 points in the championship-sealing Game 5. His 47.9% share of his team’s points in a Finals-clinching game was the second-highest ever, trailing only Jordan in 1998.

Outside of OG Anunoby’s game-winning tip-in in Game 4, the lasting images of the Finals series may have been Brunson scoring clutch, momentum-turning shots over Wembanyama, who, it should be noted, ranks above Brunson in just about every fan/media poll.

Jalen Brunson: NBA CHAMPION.

🗽 28.4 PPG in playoffs (led all players)
🗽 32.6 in NBA Finals (led all players)
🗽 45 PTS in clinching Game 5
🗽 Unanimous NBA Finals MVP

CAPTAIN CLUTCH gave New York a postseason run for the ages... and their first championship in 53 years! pic.twitter.com/M1CLPGY8bk
— NBA (@NBA) June 16, 2026

Brunson deserves a higher ranking

Through just about every lens through which we evaluate NBA players’ legacies, Brunson glows. For three years running now, he is among the most productive, statistically elite, and available players in the NBA.

On top of it, Brunson’s production drives winning in a manner that is unrivaled by peers. Brunson has won more playoff series in the past four years than any other perennial All-Star player, with more clutch baskets than many of the all-time greats, not just this generation’s.

Brunson may not feel like one of the league’’s most elite players on the court. He doesn’t have the effortless, two-way range of Gilgeous-Alexander, the all-controlling helmsmanship of Jokic, or the physical prowess that players like Antetokounmpo, Wembanyama, or Edwards can ratchet up.

But go beyond feel and look at the resumé, and Brunson’s accomplishments are not just hard to argue with—they are increasingly hard to match.

The popular Knicks Twitter adage is becoming equally hard to argue with: "Everybody is better than Jalen Brunson until it's time to be better than Jalen Brunson."

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