DasOptions | Heat

325 | 20 hours ago

Jalen Brunson proved to Becky that size doesn’t matter!

Also, if the Spurs Won, this post would still apply.

my_one_and_lonely | Knicks

117 | 20 hours ago

Though it’s more likely that Wemby will win MVP in the future than any player on the Knicks.

Eagerbeaver98 | Raptors

-44 | 17 hours ago

Not over brunson..

my_one_and_lonely | Knicks

57 | 17 hours ago

Hey I will take a Brunson MVP but he always gets underrated by voters

Ophelia_Of_The_Abyss | Knicks

6 | 8 hours ago

IDK. Brunson is very clearly a playoff riser, don’t think there’s any real argument for getting regular season MVP.

MasterPlatypus2483

28 | 19 hours ago

I’m always trying to prove to women size doesn’t matter so Brunson is my hero

wazacraft

14 | 20 hours ago

“Size matters not.” - Master Yoda

smalls_1804 | Knicks

1 | 4 hours ago

And Max Kellerman who made the same take this season

PastaSenpay

-4 | 20 hours ago

Probably the best outcome possible for that take is it being wrong and having people keep mentioning you for it. I had no idea who she was until everyone started spamming that thing

rocpilehardasfuk | Warriors

24 | 20 hours ago

I genuinely hope teams start building around small guards and then realize Becky was correct. And that Brunson is the exception and the Knicks are too stacked around him.

HokageEzio | Knicks

18 | 20 hours ago

But that’s the thing about saying something can never be done. You’re saying no matter what happens around them it can’t happen.

DMking | Wizards

-1 | 8 hours ago

She never said anything about how a small guard could never win, they would just need to be an anamoly like Curry or Isiah. She just didn’t think Brunson was like that

HokageEzio | Knicks

8 | 8 hours ago

“If your best player is small, you’re not winning. Stockton, Iverson, Nash. Steph Curry is the only exception.”

NotingAndQuoting | Knicks

13 | 19 hours ago

My bigger issue with her full take when you watch it is she seems very dismissive of the Knicks team strategy saying you need to have that ‘1A’ and Brunson is too short for it, but having an amazing all around team really can get you a win in the current nba. 2019 Raptors had great team talent, it wasn’t just kawhi. 24 Celtics were great across the board, it wasn’t just Tatum. Last years OKC team was more than just Shai. The Knicks showed that if you have the right supplemental talent, you don’t need your clutch scoring guy to be an mvp tier guy, and it’s much easier to acquire that supplemental talent in free agency and trades than it is to acquire mvp level talent.

rocpilehardasfuk | Warriors

7 | 19 hours ago

I think she’s right broadly.

It really takes someone supremely elite like Brunson to win. And even there a really great set of match ups helped the Knicks.

The Knicks’ defensive weaknesses (Towns and Brunson) could not be exposed because Spurs guards were bum and Victor isn’t a great offensive big yet.

Like OKC would have given the Knicks wayyy more trouble by going repeatedly at Brunson.

Brunson can easily hedge and recover (or trap) against bum guards and non shooters like Castle Fox. But would be under pressure against Luka Steph Ant type 1A players.

At no point did the spurs ever manage to attack JB successfully.

NotingAndQuoting | Knicks

16 | 19 hours ago

Towns has been good defensively this season and elite in the postseason, he really turned it around and it’s why this team was as good as it was.
I think the confusion is equating elite shot creation and scoring with being the ‘1A’ of a team — wemby will continue to be the best player on the spurs but I can see Harper becoming the go to shot creator, for example. Brunson’s role is to be the guy who can create his own shot and score while covered when needed but watching the Knicks they’re at their best when they get everybody involved and that’s what got them into the finals.

Short_Bumblebee_1552

12 | 15 hours ago

Towns was the Knicks defensive anchor this postseason. I know he is usually criticized for bad defense, but he had mvp play this postseason.

rocpilehardasfuk | Warriors

-4 | 14 hours ago

Yeah he was really solid but also wasn’t really tested imo.

An elite sharpshooting guard is who could test KAT or Brunson and they really never ran into any.

Maxey Fox CJ Spida just ain’t good enough to test them.

But add in someone like Shai Luka Steph (or a Brunson) and all of a sudden they break the scheme and force you try different things.

AKAkorm

10 | 16 hours ago

No matter what happens with a future team, Becky Hammon was not correct because her comment was very specifically about the Knicks never winning with Brunson.

Analysts can be wrong and that’s totally fine. But I hate it when analysts try to warp their tasks as being retroactively right by conveniently altering what they said to fit a new narrative. I hope she doesn’t do this.

rocpilehardasfuk | Warriors

1 | 14 hours ago

I agreed with her and both of us were wrong. That said I feel the general message is right, despite the rare exceptions like Steph or Brunson.

I do think we’re entering an era where elite teams win and not elite players.

So the entire premise might just be wrong.

AKAkorm

4 | 13 hours ago

OK lets look at the general theory here - that teams that have small guards in prominent roles can’t win a NBA title.

The first question is what other players fit Brunson’s mold, both in size and ability. Because Brunson is a bit of an exception in that he excelled and made an All-NBA team despite his stature.

If I look for guards who are 6’2 or shorter that have made an All-NBA team in recent history, the list is Brunson, Steph Curry, Damian Lillard, Trae Young, Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, Isaiah Thomas, Kyle Lowry, Tony Parker, and Rajon Rondo. So 11 guys (unless I have missed anyone).

Out of those 11 guys, six (Brunson, Curry, Irving, Lowry, Parker, and Rondo) have won titles while playing prominent roles on their teams. Now of course, those guys had good teams around them. But every player in the NBA needs a good supporting cast to win titles.

So to me, the evidence doesn’t support the conclusion Hammon (and I suppose you) came to.

rocpilehardasfuk | Warriors

3 | 12 hours ago

You totally can have a small guard on your team. Sooo many teams have it.

You’ll struggle if your primary offensive star is a short guy.

Only Brunson and curry were the 1A star. Rest played supporting roles around wings and bigs.

mosesbegley | Jazz

3 | 12 hours ago

Zeke was the 1A star.

Anoob13 | Bulls

3 | 6 hours ago

Of the 11 players you named, only Zeke, Steph and Brunson are the only ones who won as lead options

Zeke and Steph are top 20 players of all time, steph is the greatest shooter of all time. Brunson joined those 2 exceptions.

Just because you get 3 exceptions doesn’t mean you build the teams based on exceptions,

She is wrong in saying Knicks won’t with with Brunson, Brunson proved her wrong, but she is right in general, that unless you have an outlier like Steph or Zeke, you can’t win with smaller guard as your main player.

AKAkorm

1 | 3 hours ago

I mean…Hammon double-downed on her comments after Brunson had led the Knicks to the Finals this year. At that point, he was a three time All-NBA second team player who had already shown he could come up big in the playoffs.

I can accept that smaller guards have to be outliers to lead teams to titles. But it also feels a bit obvious to say you need special players to win at the highest level of competition in basketball and a cop out to give Hammon partial credit when she chose to double-down about the Knicks specifically after Brunson had already proven himself to be an exception to the rule.

ontheru171 | Knicks

0 | 6 hours ago

The same is true for every archetype in NBA history lol

Teams have struck out drafting the next KD or Kawhi for over a decade now

The reality is that player build is irrelevant since 99% of good nba players still will never be able to lead their teams to a ring. A player that can be a 1A on a title winner can never be pushed into a specific archetype

The_Donovan | UTA

6 | 14 hours ago

Becky Hammon isn’t a Steven A Smith/Skip Bayless. She’s a WNBA hall of famer, assistant spurs coach for 8 years, and is the current head coach of the Las Vegas Aces who have won the championship 3 out of the last 4 years under her. She wasn’t trying to say something controversial to get clicks. She said something reasonable that ended up aging poorly.

rookie-mistake

1 | 10 hours ago

She’s pretty well known and not as an analyst. She seemed pretty likely to be the first female NBA head coach a few years ago. Or, she was on an interim basis, technically

Boiled-Starch-2717 | Lakers

-13 | 20 hours ago

Ugh. She’s becoming more and more of a condescending, shallow bitch at how she dissed Jalen at something men cannot control. Even more so now with him being an NBA champion.

WestleyThe | SEA

4 | 17 hours ago

She said this like 2 years ago and she wasn’t wrong… it was basically only zeke and Steph in all of nba history…

She is a HOF wnba player too so she’s not just some random talking head

TimmyC | Knicks

-3 | 16 hours ago

It’s still kind of a lazy reasoning though, as an analyst. Imagine saying “Wemby can’t win because no one 7 4 or higher won as a 1A before”. Technically true, but like, you can examine why.

HenrikCrown | Pelicans

135 | 20 hours ago

I’m sorry Cade Cunningham fans

Space-Sailor44 | Pistons

65 | 20 hours ago

We will settle for a championship, I guess

BetweenTheBuzzAndMe | Charlotte Bobcats

136 | 20 hours ago

The Pistons account for the only 3 championships between 1984 and 2007 where they didn’t roster a consensus top ~12 player of all time.

Extend the list out to the top ~20ish (include Moses, KG, Dirk) and that time span stretches from 1980 to 2018.

AKAkorm

48 | 16 hours ago

That’s true but there also were only six franchises total that won titles in that span (Celtics, Lakers, Pistons, Bulls, Rockets, and Spurs). So not much parity in general.

Aidanator800 | Hornets

14 | 13 hours ago

The Heat did as well, in 2006

Makaveli84 | Lakers

15 | 10 hours ago

Shaq

Jamarcus316

1 | 6 hours ago

And DWade could be seen in some top-20 lists I think.

GifThatKeepsOnGivin

15 | 6 hours ago

The slander of IT not being a top 20 player is wild. Ended the Showtime Lakers and Celtics dynasties. Held off the Bulls dynasty for 3 years. Only player ever with a winning record in the playoffs against Bird, Magic, and MJ. And managed 19 and 9 for a career

givemecoffeenowhurry

6 | 20 hours ago

Isiah Thomas was arguably top 10. Joe Dumars also had 2 All NBA 2nd teams during the the years 1988-1990.

MattPatriciasFUPA | Pistons

2 | 20 hours ago

This is Fennis Dembo slander. This will not be forgotten.

1Tru3Princ3

1 | 6 hours ago

Charlotte bobcats badge, damn bro those were rough seasons

eldryanyy | Lakers

-1 | 13 hours ago

Kawhi, Giannis, Jokic, and SGA are also arguably top 30. Wemby almost definitely will be as well

GX112

62 | 17 hours ago

This is factually incorrect.

Tyler Kolek won the G League Winter Showcase Cup MVP for the Westchester Knicks. If the Knicks unleashed him in the finals, the brooms would’ve came out.

ParagonSaint

8 | 15 hours ago

They needed to use him in the NBA cup, glad they didn’t need to use their secret weapon in the finals, but if it came to game 7, you just know he coming out like Scalabrine to bring it home

smalls_1804 | Knicks

3 | 4 hours ago

There was a hot minute there during the regular season where it looked like 12 minutes of Kolek off the bench was some kind of secret sauce for our team. He comes in, plays with a bunch of energy, the ball is moving, he’s finding guys for shots they didn’t even realize they were open for. It was an awesome 5 weeks.

TalkQuirkyWithMe | Nuggets

61 | 20 hours ago

To be fair, Kawhi probably would’ve won an MVP if he ever stayed healthy enough in a regular season. He was pretty danged close on the spurs and I’d say he was an even better player off the spurs.

xosellc | Raptors

65 | 20 hours ago

People always look at the quality of the player, and never at the competition. Kawhi being an MVP caliber player is not the same as being deserving of an MVP. At any given time, there are multiple MVP caliber players in the league, and only one player can win per season. To provide a fair argument, one needs to specify which year a given player should have won the MVP award, and then make the case for said player to win instead of the player who actually did get the award.

HokageEzio | Knicks

11 | 20 hours ago

If the competition was anybody else but the greatest regular season team of all time, Kawhi wins in 2016.

Resident_Chip_5598 | NBA

1 | 9 hours ago

yeah Kawhi in 2016 was more than good enough for MVP in any other year, but basketball gods decided that same year another player will have arguably the greateat offensive season of all time

iCE_P0W3R | Thunder

3 | 18 hours ago

Part of me thinks he had a really strong argument to win it in 2017. Better than Harden, at least. But the triple double record was just too insane to not get MVP honestly.

chitown1205 | Bulls

30 | 20 hours ago

That 04 Pistons squad was something else. Made me a fan of Ben Wallace

cjklert05 | NBA

19 | 20 hours ago

Knicks team reminds me of the 2004 Pistons.

Ilikehotdogs1 | Pistons

4 | 19 hours ago

How? Offenses were very, very different

Aidanator800 | Hornets

7 | 18 hours ago

Also, Brunson is far better than whoever you consider to be the best player on that Pistons team

Livinlegend26 | Pistons

4 | 15 hours ago

Far better? Brunson attribute is scoring and clutch baskets which he does at a great level. He doesn’t rebound or defend at all and getting others involved is average at best for a PG. Ben Wallace defended at a historic level for multiple years. I’m pretty sure he is the shortest player to win a block title and one of the shortest to win a rebound title.

AbjectAffect91 | Knicks

2 | 14 hours ago

Apples and oranges really. Doesnt make sense to compare.

Livinlegend26 | Pistons

2 | 5 hours ago

The point I was making is that just because Brunson was better offensively than any player on the 04 Pistons doesn’t mean he was “far better” than any player on the 04 Pistons as the person I was responding to tried to say he was.

Eagerbeaver98 | Raptors

4 | 17 hours ago

They remind me of 19 raptors, look like a team that will go back to back if their core returns.

DyslexicWalkIntoABra

1 | 12 hours ago

What reminds you of them? Roster construction is very different.

staye7mo | NYK

2 | 5 hours ago

ogugua

Eagerbeaver98 | Raptors

1 | 8 hours ago

Both coaches could go deep into their bench for answers with great offensive schemes and elite defense. I dont think very different at all

cmv1

0 | 13 hours ago

This is terrible, but inoffensive.

Ok-Raisin5008 | Raptors

23 | 16 hours ago

Another interesting fact with the 2019 Raps is they were the only championship team in history without a single lottery pick on the roster. Wonder if that’ll ever happen again.

smalls_1804 | Knicks

1 | 4 hours ago

We obviously have KAT as #1, but after that its Bridges at #10 and Sochan at #9. OG at #23 and Shamet at #26 are the only other FRPs. Rest are second round or undrafted.

Vegetable-Tooth8463 | Hornets

12 | 20 hours ago

That’s pretty crazy to hear about the Pistons, but goes to show how much roster construction matters.

AffectionateSpare677

-18 | 20 hours ago

Real insightful stuff man. Bro getting paid by the word

Vegetable-Tooth8463 | Hornets

6 | 20 hours ago

Who pissed in your coffee lol?

dusund

9 | 20 hours ago

Pistons really just out here winning on hopes and dreams

skuiji

7 | 18 hours ago

Also, the 79 Sonics and the 75 Warriors (and all the teams pre-1956 when they brought in the trophy if you wanna be pedantic). Technically, the 81 Celtics qualify too, since Bird wasn’t an MVP yet, but still, a very impressive feat

BronxBully718

5 | 20 hours ago

All we need is us

sps26 | Knicks

4 | 19 hours ago

Every new stat I’m learning makes me love this team and this run more and more

Slight_Public_5305 | Knicks

3 | 20 hours ago

The MVP didn’t exist until 1955-56, so this is obviously false.

Knapss | NBA

3 | 13 hours ago

The Pistons were the real Heat Culture all along.🤔😱

shawhtk | Celtics

2 | 20 hours ago

75 Warriors and 79 Sonics as well.

nvUaWVm360S | Knicks

2 | 11 hours ago

We also did not meet the 40 wins before 20 losses criteria

bigE819 | Pacers

1 | 20 hours ago

79 SuperSonics, 77 Trail Blazers, 75 Warriors, & 55 Nationals also did so

Unlucky-Practice1036 | Bulls

5 | 20 hours ago

bill walton?

dbzmah | Mavericks

1 | 17 hours ago

This would be true with either finals team

Eagerbeaver98 | Raptors

-2 | 17 hours ago

Pretty sure kawhi wouldve won mvp if he stayed in toronto. Raptors likely repeat too.

Aidanator800 | Hornets

1 | 13 hours ago

The Clippers were the two seed the following year, if Kawhi didn’t win it with them I don’t see why he would’ve with the Raptors.

The 2026 NY Knicks become the sixth team in NBA history to win a championship without a former or current MVP on the roster