Becky Hammon three years ago: “[Jalen Brunson] is too small. If your best player is small, you’re not winning.”
And the irony that he won it against the tallest alien who ever landed on Earth
David vs Goliath type shit i love it.
Against the team Becky was an assistant coach for, too!
Makes it so much sweeter
Common South Dakota sports L
If she was the coach instead of Mitch the Spurs win this series
I have a feeling she’d underestimate Brunson
Maybe, but they wouldn’t have choked away every game like this. she’s a great coach and was an assistant to Pop for years. Mitch looks like he learned absolutely nothing from Pop
Mitch has that Cody Bellinger perma stoned look
Resting Mitch face
She was also wrong
two things can be true.
Anyone but Eberflus has this going to game 6
Probably ngl. Any type of experience is needed for that team.
She’s won 3 WNBA championships in 4 years as a coach. I’m actually a little sad we picked Ime over her only for him to fuck his way out of the job.
everybody’s better than Becky Hammon until it’s time to be better than Becky Hammon
Knicks losing to the Spurs 4-1 in 1999, it’s like poetry, it just rhymes
Except this time, David won!
Same thing with Wardell in the Paris Olys. Wemby just lost twice on the ultimate stages. And with zero grace.
Everyone outside NY had the Spurs waltzing to the championship expecting a red hot Knicks to just belly up at the sight of the new demigod Wemby…
“Western Conference Finals was the real championship” people said.
Knicks even fielded GTA to offer a greater height differential
That fuckass fadeaway is so unblockable man. It’s Dirk-esque.
Makes me wonder if Dirk actually spent time teaching it to him in Dallas, it really does look like Dirk’s
Wemby shinks to 5 feet tall in the 4th.
Whether or not Wemby deserves it, Skip and Twitter trolls are now going to say that Wemby is unclutch no matter what he does until he wins a championship (which could be a very long time). This narrative was served to Skip on a golden platter and he is absolutely going to abuse it lol. Fully deserved based on this series, but he will be getting use out of it for years - even if he becomes way more clutch
Every time an uncrowned king stumbles it adds 7 years to Skip’s media career.
Can we all agree to not repeat anything Skip says? Just don’t give him attention. Don’t mention him. He is the definition of a modern troll.
He played way too many minutes in these playoffs - He was lucky not to get injured given how fatigued he was getting at the end of these games.
The Spurs should’ve found more frontcourt help at the deadline and ensured that Wemby wasn’t playing more than 32-36 minutes a night, no matter what.
IMO he should have been playing no more than 24mpg before getting to 4th quarter every night.
Their entire defense depends on him being able to rush a guy at the perimeter and then recover back to still defend the rim. Every 4th quarter, he’d lose a step, couldn’t defend both, and then Brunson would eat him alive.
True but what they do works against most teams, the Knicks just have great depth. They have a switchy wings who can shoot and 2 Centers that can deal with him. The Knicks have a ton of firepower and flexibility. I feel like the Media and Spurs fanbase were delusional thinking they had the better roster. They beat the Spurs 6 times this year.
And Brunson becomes 7 foot 4 inches in the 4th
Brunson is so fucking great
He gets whatever he wants when he wants.
Alien vs. Predator
Nah, underrated comment. HOF worthy.
Levi vs Beast Titan
That turned out to be hydrogen bomb v coughing baby
and against an organization she coached.
Brunson was responsible for 48% of the knicks points in this game alone… HE CARRIED THE KNICKS OVER THE FINISH LINE.
We all knew Wemby was gonna do it, right? Bye bye
In the arena that has her jersey in the rafters
Also she was assistant coach for the Spurs and for long was considered as Pop’s successor
Well Brunson has now joined Steph and Zeke as the exceptions to that rule
I wonder if they’ll elevate him to that level in the future to keep the gimmick going
Steph’s level would be tough like a don’t see Brunson winning 2 MVPs but Isiah Thomas is definitely achievable and you could even put him there now if you really wanted to
Yeah I think IT level is realistic and is fantastic. If he were to average 30/5/5 with great shooting splits I could see him snatching an MVP
I personally think it’d be really hard for him to win an MVP with that statline unless the Knicks win like 65 games, or the usual suspects - SGA, Jokic, Luka, etc. - are all hurt
Yeah, Luka, SGA, Jokic, and Wemby are def gonna make it hard
Love Brunson but I feel lukas rise to MVP is closer than most think.
Honestly, Luka is right there alongside Elgin Baylor as the best career averages to never win MVP, right now… And he almost certainly will in the next year or two. And Wemby will be a Top 3 vote getter in the MVP every year he qualifies.
I still think Luka is the best player in the world, we’ll have to see if I’m right next year.
Then again, I’ll let NYK fans shout out Jalen Brunson as much as they want. Heck, go crazy with it!
Luka put up 33⁄9.2⁄9.8 and wasn’t close to winning MVP, there’s almost no chance of him getting it barring injury
What?!? I love Brunson, but come on.
Zeke: 2 chips, 12 all stars, 5 straight All-NBA, once led the league with 13.9 assists per game, career average 2 steals per game.
Brunson: 1 chip, 3 all stars, 3 All NBA, best assist season was 7.3 apg, never cracked 1 steal per game (career 0.7 spg).
It’s not even close.
The difference is Brunson being a much heavier scorer over outright passer.
They are fundamentally very different teams with very different game plans.
IT was beating Jordan and Magic. Brunson is not on that level
Steph’s level is literally unobtainable 😂
Brunson could average 30 on 50/40/90 with 2 more finals MVPs the next 2 seasons and nobody is putting him on the same level
True a 3peat with 3 finals MVPs is pretty mid. I’m regarded btw
Isiah Thomas is definitely achievable
No it isnt. Thomas played 13 years, and was a 12 time all star. He made 5 all NBA teams when there was only two teams.
Brunson would have to rip off multiple championships to pass Thomas.
“Steph’s level would be tough”
I really hope not. If Jalen Brunson has proven one thing in his life, it’s that when people doubt him he is ridiculously good. Keep doubting this man!
ngl i was waiting to hear what perkins had to say and they just never let him speak before the clip ends
Steph isn’t even small, that’s the funniest part.
Exactly, this sub have been saying the same thing. These small subs won’t win because they can’t play defense.
Who’s zeke?
Isiah Thomas (Detroit)
She’s said she was happy to be proven wrong.. I’m sure she’s happily eating those words
Yeah this says much more about Brunson than anything else. The only exceptions to the rule in the last 50+ years are Isiah, Steph and now Brunson.
I mean Steph was at least their best player two of those championships and Isiah has two too. Really this mostly skews cause since the 90s the best player on 19-20 championships has been one of five guys who are all over 6’6”. Six for Jordan, five for Kobe Shaq, four LeBron, four or five for Timmy depending on how you feel about Robinson or Kawhi in the bookends.
If there are 3 exceptions it aint a fucking rule lol
Say it louder for the people in the back
I hold the same opinion and honestly, Brunson a title winning changes nothing. Just proves how incredibly hard it is to win with a small guard as your best player.
3 exceptions vs dozens of cases that prove it absolutely is a rule lmfao
The only exceptions in league history tbh
Sounds like its a stupid fucking rule to begin with. We don’t really ahve a lot of All-NBA level small guards in the NBA, and winning a ring is already hard. I said this at the time, you could also say “well you can’t win if your best player is above 7 2” to exclude Kareem and say it doesn’t happen, because yeah, its rare as well
Especially when she gets Mitchs job
also she just said it hardly happens, and she is still right.
Did she turn in her San Antonio citizenship to get her NYC citizenship or is this a dual citizenship situation?
Not a 1A
about the most 1a dude in the nba right now lol. honestly after that series if you told me i needed to pick 1 player to score late in the 4th, i thin, i’d take brunson.
It’s so unreal how defies statistics with his clutch performances, he does it routinely too
I don’t remember a player as consistently great in the clutch as brunson, not sure there ever has been one
I don’t know analytics or anything, but Dame was clutch like this.
We are a year removed from an even more clutch playoff run…
We were robbed of a Hali 50 burger in game 7
Dame was pretty damn clutch. He just didn’t have such a great supporting cast like Brunson
No apron shit back then, don’t put this on Dame. It’s the FO fault.
Yeah but Dame took the max/supermax every opportunity he got (no hate for that) so his front office would’ve been hamstrung, even if they were competent.
A team in that era can live with 1 player taking the max. Their FO was just incompetent
You’re not sure if there has ever been a player as consistently good in the clutch as Jalen Brunson?
Dude is amazing and I’m all for the praise, but most consistently clutch player of all time feels like quite the reach.
He’s one of the clutchest players in NBA history tbh
I want Iguodala
Hahahahhahahahahahha
He’s a 1a
Gonna revisit this classic thread for shits and giggles
If you ever have imposter syndrome, just remember when Jalen Brunson finessed $110 million from the Knicks
lol
They actually called him “Walmart FVV” in there lol.
Bruh I’m a big FVV guy but wtf was that comparison 🤣
That person is still active and giving horrible opinions. Gotta love Reddit
They don’t see the vision bro They thinking y’all gonna be a play in team but with hard work and enough time I think getting swept in the first round is achievable
They don’t see the vision bro
They thinking y’all gonna be a play in team but with hard work and enough time I think getting swept in the first round is achievable
bars
They probably sold more than $110 million in merch as soon as that first ad played after the final buzzer.
“Worse contract that Beal” is my favorite
These takes are so unbelievably bad in retrospect it makes me never want to trust anyone on this website ever again
ive been saying it for years, r/nba generally has 0 ball knowledge, a lot of it are takes from other people or just hot takes in general lol.
You can safely extrapolate that to all of reddit.
I used to lean a lot more into Reddit knowledge when I was younger, then I looked up something I was actually incredibly well versed in and it blew my mind how misinformation there was in the top responses.
It’s a testament of just how awful the Knicks were for the past decades. That people already determined, there was no conceivable chance they could get better, let alone be a championship contender.
My understanding was smart NBA minds / front offices thought it was either an OK or mild overpay. It was the talking heads who did “Knicks for Clicks”.
Here’s another gem:
“Right.. Aytons literally twice the player Brunson is with way more room to grow lol. Brunsons 26 in a month. He ain’t getting much better if it all.”
Yup, the wildest take I’ve read from the past. That’s amazing lol
Clearly from someone who has never watched a game of basketball
it was literally everyone on here tho so it was probably the overwhelmingly popular opinion at the time
The most sensible response is buried- it makes him the 14th highest paid pg at the time right ahead of Terry Rozier… the only thing Reddit knows less about than ball is money
Knicks were clowned pretty hard on this subreddit after going down 2-1 to the Hawks. A lot of people were calling it over for the Knicks. Pretty sure most of those posts that got a lot of upvotes on the front page have been deleted lol.
When Mike brown got hired majority of this sub was saying they’d be a playin team. That’s when I knew we hit gold with Mike brown.
Lots of great gems in that thread proving no one knows shit
“What type of team they building” as the top comment is incredible
A fuckin champion I guess
Walmart FVV is crazy
Redditors are obsessed with being wrong
Ahh what a gem lol thanks buddy gotta save that post
We live in an era that Becky and Windy were wrong and Perk was right.
Let this sink
Lol
I threw up in my mouth…
Perk on Road Trippin isn’t that bad. He doesn’t do the stupid clickbait ESPN takes. His takes are somewhat reasonable because he can explain it on Road Trippin.
(Still he’s a lazy unprofessional bum who always dials in the podcast on his phone with dogshit internet and audio quality)
Remember when Becky was lauded as the golden child to replace Poppovich? lol
Isn’t she currently coaching a WNBA dynasty? It’s not her fault that she wanted to coach while pop wasn’t retired.
One bad but not unreasonable take doesn’t mean she’s not a great coach
She was right. If you listen to the full thing, she said the Knicks need a good center. They got KAT, their highest-paid player, right after this. Previously, they had Julius Randle.
And has 2 of the best wings next to him
the steph curry roster construction. good center, great/functional 3&D wings. DPOY Dray + Klay/Iggy/KD
Bogut was more than just a good center.
I listened to the full thing. She was wrong. She made a absolute statement that Brunson wont win a championship and Knicks need someone like a center to be the best player. KAT might be their highest player but Brunson is their best player.
Like people didn’t think how long ago was that comment.
So she should have said that Brunson needed better teammates around him, instead of this bs about him not being able to win as the “1A”. He just shut that shit down!
But… She wasn’t right. Brunson is clearly their best player. And they won. Ergo, she was wrong.
This is ridiculous, literally every champion has an elite team and Brunson certainly isnt out of the norm. Its probably on the average side of supporting cast for champ teams in terms of talent.
Was honestly not an uncommon take.
If the Knicks paid him his worth, they never would be able to afford KAT and doubt they’d make the finals.
Brunson is great, but his contract is better
Based
Just another example of how good Brunson is. He elected to extend early rather than going for the bag so that the Knicks could afford to go out and get him some help. That move allowed them to get Anunoby, Bridges, and KAT.
In the end, it was the better move for his game and his career and he was smart enough to know it.
When the Hawks were up 2-1 on them I saw a couple comments, and even a post, claiming her right. That Brunson was small and you can’t win a ring with him lol.
Now Tbf those post were on NBA Talk and that sub is….interesting lol
common doesn’t mean correct
It’s so funny how so many people online are acting like they didn’t agree with Becky on this take back then. Unless you were an actual Knicks fan you most likely agreed with this take which is also a common take in the nba in general because historically, small guards have not led their team to a ring. Steph and IT really were the outliers.
Becky was not crazy for saying this even though Brunson proved her wrong. Hindsight is 20⁄20 though so now nba fans are gonna lie and act like they believed in Brunson all along lol
And it was wrong. This way of talking about basketball is simply lazy and oversimplifies the game
At least she’ll be avle to admit she was wrong
2 wks ago
“I said what i said, if he proves me wrong he proves me wrong”
It’s too easy to predict someone will never win a chip, winning a chip is way too hard
She already said it.
She already has admitted she was wrong since this comment
She did not admit anything?? She said she stands by her statement and said he should prove her wrong
We also cant forget that brunson wasnt really good for the first few games and his team stepped up like crazy
Yeah if you removed the good parts of something it becomes bad. Brunson was bad because of our coverage. We were helping way less and he scored 45 points as a result.
I hardly think he was “bad”. He won game 1 down the stretch. Game 4 he might not have had the biggest moments but he had an MVP performance. Game 5 he turned into prime vintage MJ. Even in game 2 he was there to capitalize on Wembys turnover.
What part of these games was he bad? You made him miss shots? If he stopped trying he would have been bad. He was just hard carrying despite the misses.
That’s actually normal but since he’s short I guess it will be held against him. Y’all really think the fmvp shoots well every game? They are the focal point of the opposing teams defense.
That was before kat cut her some slack
KAT the guy who just went 1-7 with 2 points? Yeah not sure how that matters when brunson willed his team to the title with a 45 point clutch game lol
yall were losing to the Hawks without KAT
I think hes saying that regardless of the KAT signing, Brunson is their best player.
A Short King is still a King, Becky.
Excuse me m’aam, Let me introduce you to The Dude.
Y’all posting this because he won but I know for a fact y’all were agreeing back then. It’s free to switch up
And Barkley said Warriors would never win a title being a jump shooting team. Wtf cares lol
“And I took that personally.” -Brunson
Those “brass taxes” looking pretty dumb right about now
Joins Curry and Thomas as the ones who break the mold
That should be the real narrative here tbh, because really she’s still right about small Guards; Brunson is different. Masterclass game 5.
Becky Hammon abuses her WNBA players. RIP BOZO
Damn yall are really moving the goalposts in here now saying that he has a great supporting cast, but weren’t you all arguing that you can’t win a championship building around a guard under 6’3?
I think where she went wrong was getting down to brass taxes
Perkins was right
Tbf KAT and OG balleddddd. It wasn’t just Brunson.
But today’s NBA doesn’t rely on 1 or 2 people anymore. The team and the bench matter so, so, much more
When in history has an NBA team been able to rely on one or two players to be successful?
Becky Hammon is so dumb lol
Smokin the Spurs pack thru and thru
It’s been said ad nauseum but it rings so truthfully now.
EVERYONE IS BETTER THAN BRUNSON UNTIL IT’S TIME TO BE BETTER THAN BRUNSON!
Becky tried revisionist history “he hasn’t WON A CHAMPIONSHIP yet” when she clearly said they couldn’t even be a top team in the east. They proved that in 2024. She has been wrong for 2 years.
I mean to be fair, was Brunson of today the same as Brunson of 3 years ago?
Small-wise, yes, which was her point
Basically yes
This has been a fact for almost the entire history of the NBA. T
Oh, Jalen Brunson is definitely that dude
Tbh if they were paying Brunson the full supermax she would’ve been right, sorry downvote me
Lmao the amount of qualifiers that yall need for this take to be right is hilarious
buddy you’re coaching a wnba team
Becky and the rest of the Brunson haters are just gonna move the bar and say some other Knick is better than Brunson.
Yep, that 45 in a closeout championship game is obviously insignificant.
He has a great supporting cast.
Name some finals MVPs without a great supporting cast. Dirk in 2011 comes to mind because he had no other all-stars, but the cast was amazing that year.
They’ll do anything to undermine it
it’s crazy reading the comments in these threads. Even after watching someone score 45 of a team’s 94 points in a closeout game in the Finals, they’re still underrating him
Werent some of y’all saying the same thing before? hahaha
to be fair, what she said was a fact for the last 60 years of the NBA
Women would genocide short men if they could.
The Jalen Brunson slander will not be tolerated anymore. Dude carried the knicks to a championship. 32.6 points, 4.6 assists, and 4.2 rebounds per game… He IS him.
“a jump-shooting team can’t win the NBA championship”
Isn’t Steph Curry technically small in NBA standards?
He is an outlier
It’s so crazy. I remember people going nuts on the Brunson signing. Laughing at it and mocking the Knicks.
R/whoosh
I’m here for allllll of these receipts being posted for the next week or two
Wait you mean Becky hammon doesn’t know ball? That’s wild.
Plot Twist. They got THE dude.
I will never forget homeboy hitting that 3 right in Wembys eye in game 4. That’s some 1A stuff right there.
Interview sounds so much worse than just the quote
Half of these commentators don’t know what they are talking about