There are still three or four rounds left in the NBA regular season, and the competition for playoff tickets is not over. This season, the NBA has a huge number of stars, which also leads to fierce competition between teams. Especially for the role of defender, there are countless excellent defenders in the league, and there are a group of young defenders rising this season, such as Haliburton, Edwards, and Three-Ball Ball, all of whom signed five-year contract extensions with their own teams last summer, and the future is promising. is as strong as Stephen Curry, who failed to make the All-Star starting lineup this season and was squeezed out by Alexander. A few years ago, Alexander was still a junior brother by Paul's side, but now he has become the spokesperson of the league's offensive and defensive integration, and the top three players in the MVP, and he has made rapid progress.
Curry can finally make the All-Star bench, and there are some traditional old-school guard stars, and the All-Star can't make it. Like Harden, Wei Shao, Paul, Irving, these older generation of traffic stars, all failed to make the All-Star team this season. Wei Shao and Paul have indeed declined a lot due to age, Harden's style of play has changed since the transformation, the scoring data has decreased sharply, and the current organizational style of play is not popular, and he has missed the All-Star for two consecutive seasons. Irving was actually in his prime, but he suffered a lot of injuries in the first half of the season and missed a lot of games, which also led to him not being selected as an All-Star this season. It can be seen that as a defender, it will definitely not be easy to make it to the All-Star team this season and win the favor of fans and judges.
There is one guard player who is not very conspicuous, has mediocre talent, and does not have a high starting point, who only came to the NBA as a second-round pick, but he became an All-Star this season, which is very admirable, and that is Jalen Brunson of the Knicks. In the 18 draft, Brunson was only selected by the Mavericks with the third pick in the second round, just looking at the talent, Brunson really has no bright spots, only 1.85 meters tall, narrow shoulders and big head, and also reduced the effective height. In addition, Brunson also does not have a super dynamic physical talent, and does not have the explosive power to fly. On top of that, Brunson was still an older rookie at the time, 22 years old at the time of the draft, and no one thought he would be able to make a name for himself in the NBA. When recalling Brunson, former Warriors general manager Myers once bluntly said on a show:
My answer was that Brunson was too short to maintain the singles level of his college days in the NBA. In his first season in the league, Brunson also started as a role player and was a junior brother next to Doncic, but in fact, his rookie season statistics were quite good, averaging 9.3 points, 2.3 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game, which also allowed Brunson to get more playing time and opportunities in the future. In the time since, Brunson's personal ability has also been steadily improving, and the 21-22 season has completely ushered in a turning point, in the playoffs that year, Brunson broke out super, and in the absence of Doncic's injury, he was appointed as the team's boss to lead the Mavericks through the game, averaging 27.8 points per game in the first round series, and then Doncic returned to the game, Brunson was able to continue his previous hot state, and joined hands with Doncic to lead the team to the Western Conference finals.
In the '22 offseason, considering the team's development prospects, the Mavericks did not offer Brunson an ideal big contract, while the Knicks saw it and acquired Brunson on a four-year, $104 million contract. At the time, the price may have been a bit expensive, but now that I look at it, it just smells good. After joining the Knicks, Brunson quickly adapted to the team, became the core guard of the Knicks, and incidentally activated Randle, and the two teamed up to lead the Knicks to become the dark horse in the East, and exceeded expectations last season to reach the Eastern Conference semifinals. Last season, in the 22-23 season, Brunson averaged 24.0 points, 3.5 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game, and his three-point shooting rate was as high as 41.6%, and he already had quasi-All-Star level strength. And this season, Brunson continues to evolve.
So far in the regular season, Brunson has averaged 28.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 6.7 assists per game, ranking fourth in the league in points per game, behind Doncic, Antetokounmpo and Alexander. This season, Brunson also scored 50+ points in a single game many times, scoring 50 points, 6 rebounds, 9 assists and 5 steals against the Suns, and 61 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists against the Spurs, becoming a league super scorer. Although he doesn't have a great talent for static dynamics, Brunson has good skills, solid fundamentals, a tough body, a very high ball quotient, a strong ability to create damage, and a fairly consistent mid-range projection, which makes him super explosive in scoring. From the bench to an All-Star, the NBA's most underrated player is gold that always shines. Randle has been out for more than two months due to injury, and during this time, Brunson can still lead the team single-handedly, keeping the Knicks' record in the top four in the East, which is really amazing! I wonder if they can surprise fans again in the playoffs?