Jalen Brunson is fighting for more than just the first Knicks championship since 1973. He is fighting against the preconceptions that have haunted him. More particularly, from former Spurs Assistant and two-time WNBA winning coach Becky Hammon, who termed him “too small” for a 1A player to win a championship in 2023. Cut to 2026, after Brunson took the Knicks to the finals, Hammon still stood her ground, citing how Allen Iverson lost the finals. Now, a WNBA All-Star has fired back at her. 

“I respectfully disagree. I think Jalen Brunson represents something really cool and is an anomaly,” WNBA All-Star Chiney Ogwumike said on ESPN’s ‘Chiney Today’. “Even though the path is difficult, he has proven that it can be done a different way—through being a clutch player, through brotherhood, through the ‘Nova Knicks,’ and through being that kind of anti-hero.”

Jalen Brunson has some history by his side. Small point guards like Isiah Thomas with the Pistons back in the 1989-90 and Steph Curry in the 2010s won plenty of hardware. Even a 6’2″ Tony Parker won the Finals MVP in 2007. But Hammon looks at it differently. 

Earlier this week, she stated: “I’m speaking historically on the NBA with what I said. I said it two years ago. I stand by it. There’s no air to be cleared. I said what I said.”

Eventually, it’s a battle of opinions, and Hammon further admitted that she is still cheering for the Spurs after playing for the Silver Stars and working under Greg Popovich. To Hammon’s credit, she cited Irving, John Stockton, and Steve Nash, who failed to win a championship in Brunson’s position. And even Kevin Durant once had a similar opinion to Hammon:

“If you’re 6’0 or 6’1 and you’re not a bulldog like Davion Mitchell, Jrue Holiday on the defensive side or an offensive savant like Kyrie Irving, I just can’t see it,” Durant had said in 2025.

However, Brunson doesn’t care. He has designed his game to work around the problems a 1A small guard faces. His footwork is elite, and the jumper has always been there. Brunson has molded his body to take the most brutal contact and finish through it.

On defense, he has held his own against the likes of Jaylen Brown and Derrick White. The decision-making is sharper than ever, which is giving leverage going against bigger opponents. And then there is the sheer determination. 

“When people come to New York City, they expect the accolades, the ambiance, the aura, the cars, the flash, and the substance. He just shows up with his beanie and shades on and goes to work,” Ogwumike further said. “That’s so emblematic of New York City. They show up.”

But in a way, Ogwumike and Becky Hammon agree with each other. Jalen Brunson is defying the odds. History and the recent trends in the league suggest that small 1A guards are moving out of relevance. But Brunson has something the analysts and fans can’t measure. 

The Jalen Brunson case implores analysts to focus beyond the numbers

When the Dallas Mavericks drafted Brunson in the second round, even they did not believe he would reach where he is now. He couldn’t become a regular in the starting lineup there until his fourth year, after he contended for the Sixth Man of the Year. Minority owner of the  Mavericks Mark Cuban, also revealed the scouting report the team had while drafting him, and his size was a talking point. 

“He was just some chubby guy… we picked him 33rd… His go-to was a spin or move to the left & he’d fall away & never got the foul. Now his midrange is money. That’s what you don’t know when you draft a mental capacity. Will they work hard to improve?” Cuban said last year.

However, Cuban emphasized that they wanted to re-sign him, but they refused to budge from their five-year, $105 million offer.

The Knicks, in turn, offered him a four-year, $104 million deal, which he signed, receiving a huge pay bump. Now, he is repaying them in full while the Mavericks still sit in rebuilding mode. They undervalued an All-Star partly based on his mild scouting report and size, and live to regret it. 

Of course, the Mavericks considered him a ‘champion’ but did not believe in him enough to pay up. Brunson’s rise is another reminder that intangibles can sometimes outweigh physical limitations.