Knicks win every ESPY they were Nominated for- Best Male Athlete, Best NBA Player, Best Championship Performance, Best Play, Best Team
SRC:https://www.espn.com/espys/story/_/id/49359664/espys-2026-award-winners-jalen-brunson-aja-wilson-fernando-mendoza
Brunson gets athlete, nba player, championship performance,
OG gets best play
If the ESPYs were 46 minutes long, Spurs would’ve won every award
Analytically, the Cavs swept these awards
https://streamable.com/yu2se
LMAO
that would have been the best joke tonight, and I’m dominican.
if im a spurs fan id be so annoyed this guy gave more headlines to this when hes not even part of the team anymore and is coaching in the opposite conference
Can confirm, I wish we’d just shut up and stop talking about it. Even if he gave credit earlier in the question, saying that later just makes it sound like delusion and sour grapes.
We got our asses beat, in embarrassing fashion no less. Use it as a learning experience and move on.
Finally, someone gets it!
/s 😭
Take my upvote good sir
Still talking like this in the big ‘26 huh
Add Messi and Ohtani to the list of people walked down by Jalen Brunson (Matt Stafford was there too)
I don’t see Ohtani dropping 45 in a closeout game. Just sayin’
I feel like 3 HRs and 10 Ks is worth at least 60 lmao
Leading the Dodgers to the promise land is infinitely less impressive than dragging the godforsaken Knicks there
Without a salary cap
Hey now his salary cap discount was a way bigger sacrifice than Brunson’s
The Dodgers are allowed to outspend other teams whereas the Knicks are not was the point
I mean,, any team in the mlb can outspend them cheap ass owners don’t wanna tho.
Look at the Met too. You can outspend them and still be absolute trash too,
The Dodgers spending is literally larger than the net worth of some team owners, it is absolutely not something any team in the league can do lol
Dodgers didn’t even have the highest payroll that year
the Mets are the only example that everyone keeps pointing to. outside of them the high spending teams all perform well
Saying Brunson dragged the godforsaken Knicks there is straight up disrespectful to the rest of his teammates. This was not LeBron in 07. Brunson didn’t have some insane carry job, the Knicks were a great ALL AROUND team in the playoffs.
I think it was more of a diss on the organization itself rather than the current lineup of players, even Knicks fans usually hate the ownership and management of the team going back decades
I’m more taking issue with the “dragged” piece.
I will also admit it’s a greater frustration that we constantly flatten team events to reflections of individuals, and constantly proclaim every new occurrence of a thing as incredible and amazing etc.
Brunson was fantastic, but among all “best players on a title teams”, it was a roughly median performance. Not bad, but not even Giannis in 2021, let alone Lebron in 2016.
And outside of your LeBrons and Jordan’s; all titles are achievements in roster construction, not necessarily individual brilliance.
I agree with some of what you’ve said here, but I gotta push back on Brunson having a “median” performance. Bro scored 45 in a closeout Finals game in which every teammate he had suddenly became allergic to points. Averaged 28 and 6 for the series. Came up clutch every single time he needed to. Shortest guy on the floor going straight at Wemby numerous times, and repeatedly having success with it.
The Knicks needed every single piece of that team to pull this off, and Brunson certainly did not have any sort of 09 Bron carry job on his hands, but his Finals MVP was very well deserved, at least in my opinion. Hard to quantify the amount of “dog” in someone, but it’s not so hard to see Jalen had more of it than anyone else, all postseason long. Maybe not an all time performance, but certainly not forgettable.
I can see your side of the debate though, always appreciate the discourse
But every teams best players (outside notable exceptions like the Celtics recent run) has a player doing similarly heroic things.
Go back and just pick random years, and they will have a superstar averaging 25-30 points (or 20-10 if that’s more their style) with big plays in key moments. Brunson is REALLY good, and his close out game was special. But this pretends that 45 is some unattainable number, or that he wasn’t below average for a superstar in the first 4 games.
Again, I’m not saying he wasn’t great, I am saying the median performance for a finals winning star is great.
And the totality of the evidence is that he’s really good, but not an MVP caliber player. And that’s ok.
To me the “special” final performances are things like the two I mentioned.
06 wade. 17-18 Durant (and LeBron) etc. Brunson’s performance was excellent, but shouldn’t meaningfully change your evaluation of him as a player. And if it does, I think that highlights a flaw in the model of NBA greatness one is using.
Appreciate the pushback and respectful conversation as well, just in case the text format is sharpening my tone.
He literally just won Finals MVP, unanimously. After outplaying every MVP candidate in the playoffs.
He’s not only one of those guys. He’s demonstrably better than those guys
I mean dropping 40 on that spurs defense is so insane that it seemed unattainable. I didn’t even think he could do it haha
youre a clown
Yeah Ohtani just needed a Toronto sports team to shit the bed
That team just plays on easy mode with all their circumvention bullshit.
Lolyankees
Thing with Ohtani is that what he’s doing is ridiculous and historic, but he’s doing this every season now. He’s deserving of every award on the planet but at the same time I do understand why people vote for something like the Knicks somehow winning a championship, which is less objectively impressive, but probably more rare considering the recent state of the Knicks.
His wife probably could
Sounds very espn of them
makes senes jalen brunson owned best play for the knicks
Stafford was the most random ass nomination lmao
Do ESPYs have voter fatigue? Ohtani is doing things everyday that no one has done previously and already labeled the GOAT by a huge portion of baseball analysts and fans at only 31⁄32. Love JB, but this seems wild to me
It’s fan voted
Trump didn’t attend any of the awards so they swept
If that fucker shows up at the World Cup Finals at Metlife (pls no) I wonder who he’s gonna curse to lose
Argentina since he will probably be rooting for them
I dunno I think that would make too many people happy.
It was only a week or so ago he was trashing Spain at the NATO summit, you cannot dodge the claim he is supporting Argentina
0-3 by my count, KC vs Philly, game 3, Us vs Bel. Game 3 I called once I heard about it.
It’s a real curse
The higher powers have truly told this country to get his ass out of power or more horrible shit will happen to it. I don’t make the rules, the proof is in the pudding with all these curses.
When the nationals were in the World Series in 2019 they lost every home game that Trump attended
He’ll certainly be rooting for Argentina (run by one of his simps) over Spain (run by a leftist who doesn’t like him)
Given he recently referred to Spain as a terrible partner and a wasted cause populated by hopelessly bad people I somehow think he’d be on Argentina’s side
Who cares about useless awards like the NBA Championship and NBA MVP, we all know the real dream is winning an ESPY
Real one is in season tournament championship
Brunson got that one too.
Kia Shooting Stars Award is peak
Brunson winning mvp next year 😭 oh and he has as many FMVPs as Steph
ESPY lol.
Lemme know when they won the Nickelodeon Awards.
The elusive NVP. The final hurdle of Brunson’s career.
I don’t want to hear anyone in the GOAT conversation who doesn’t have multiple Kid’s Choice Awards.
And the summer of Knicks continues!!!
Knicks in 5!!
The New York Knicks and their players were nominated for 5 ESPY Awards and won all 5 during the July 2026 ceremony.
Knicks in 5 again 🧹
We’re treating the starting five like literal sports gods. And it continues tomorrow because the Fanatics Fest with their autograph signings and the “Kings of New York” panel with Aaron Judge is gonna be fucking nuts.
What has Aaron judge done for that team they dont win shit
Get to the World Series and be the best player in MLB for years besides Ohtani. Until this year it was a debate the last few years of who was the true King of New York with Judge winning the debate 8 times out of 10.
One guy can’t win a World Series.
Knicks in 5!!!
Best male athlete for Brunson seems kind of insane, but it is to be expected I guess. It’s just weird to win that award while not even being an MVP candidate in your league lol
Biased but it’s gotta be Yohshinobu Yamamoto. Doing what he did and still having enough to come in and close game 7.
Yamamoto wasn’t nominated (he for sure should have been nominated for best championship performance imo, I was shocked he wasn’t on the list).
ESPN hates baseball sadly
Probably hurts October was like 9 months ago
I think it was a tough year to be nominated because the Winter Olympics happened, so those events had a lot of nominations.
r/baseball is in unanimous agreement on this, especially having Mike Tyson and Logan Paul award Shohei Ohtani and say stupid shit.
I mostly agree with them as of now.
Dodgers do not win that ring without that performance. Brunson drops the ball in Game 5 and they still have two more opportunities to close it out
Na, the regular season is a lot more important than the playoffs for baseball in terms of player evaluation. Yamamoto was good in the regular season, but I think it should have pretty easily just gone to Ohtani. Top 3 player in the regular season + solid postseason.
Yeah pretty weird to see him win it when he arguably (I would say probably) isn’t a top 5 player in his own sport.
I would argue he’s the best player in basketball right now. Everyone supposedly better than him performed worse in the playoffs by a considerable margin
Well that’s a dumb opinion but more power to you.
I mean he’s consistently being a top 3 playoff player as a Knick. No matter his defensive woes he still carrries the team to victory
Come on, do you really think he is the BEST basketball player in the world? You really think he’s better than SGA, Wemby, and Jokic? All of them?
I love Brunson, I got roasted by my friends last year dying on the hill that he’s a better player than Kyrie has ever been. But there’s levels to this.
That’s just me watching the playoffs and seeing everyone better than him not be better than him
he’s top 5 and was an MVP candidate. Just b/c he didn’t officially win those doesnt mean he didn’t prove he was when it really mattered.
He won 3 MVP awards this season.
Ok, but he literally was not in MVP contention during the regular season. There were objectively just a good amount of people better than him. In the playoffs, he was amazing. I think giving him best NBA player makes at least some sense because of how much the playoffs matters in the NBA, but best overall male athlete is definitely overkill
Jalen Brunson is really good but has he tried being good when the games matter the least?
Ya unlike that other bum Ohtani who followed up his runaway MVP by totally wilting away in the playoffs to the tune of… the greatest baseball game ever played to eliminate the Brewers in the NLCS single handedly, or one of the greatest WS games of all time, and over a 1.000 OPS in the series?
Exactly. This is why I tell people Robert Horry is a top 10 player all-time, if not #1. All that matters is how you perform in the biggest moments. Anyone who cares about other moments is a loser.
All that matters is how you perform in the biggest moments. Anyone who cares about other moments is a loser.
And Brunson was objectively complete horseshit for 4⁄5 games of the finals, so can we stop pounding our chests?
I thought the sarcasm was obvious, but I guess not. Lmao.
Youre dumb as hell if you think he was horseshit for 4⁄5 games
Brain, go find one
Horry didn’t average 25+ in the playoffs tho…
So the issue is that he’s only the best during the only time where it matters.
Let them cope it’s ok
There were objectively just a good amount of people better than him.
All of whom played worse than he did in the playoffs
If you lead the new york knicks to a championship. Expect overkill. You should have seen this coming
He was the most valuable player for the playoffs and scored half the Knicks points in the closing game
You’re out here talking about the regular season when we’re out here talking playoffs and championships. What matters more lol
I always forget if New York is a big market. Yes. Yes it is.
Before this year people weren’t so sure
ESPN realized glazing the knicks more is good for business, meanwhile Shohei had a literal all-time great season/World Series run
Ohtani didn’t even win World Series MVP
Not because Ohtani wasn’t crazy awesome in the WS, but because Yamamoto had a legendary performance. It’s completely different, in large part because baseball is a different sport that allows for something like that, because basketball is more zero-sum adjacent as a sport(only one person can end any given possession, Brunson scoring is mutually exclusive to anyone else on his team scoring that time down the court, while Ohtani mashing home runs and doubles and getting walked is not mutually exclusive to Yoshi dealing filth to the Blue Jays on the mound).
It’s less impressive when you’ve got a team full of mvps tbh
Yet, as another Redditor commented, this subreddit was in awe of Ohtani’s game 4 conference finals (i.e., the single greatest baseball performance of all time).
Ok, great. Wemby had arguably the best game of the playoffs - 41/24/3/1/3 on 67 TS% against the Thunder in Game 1- and nobody thinks he was the best player in the playoffs. One game, no matter how great, cannot overshadow consistent excellence
Best player? Yall on crack
Your team felt the same way.
Yall fumbled him 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Analytically, the Cavs won every ESPY award
Because it’s ESPN right? New York nba basketball? Who else would they award whenever possible? A hockey team or cricket players?
Who else would they award whenever possible?
Who is “they”? It’s fan voted.
Some would argue the literal GOAT of baseball in his prime leading his team to back-to-back championships
The dodgers have like 4 MVPs on the team, who gives a shit.
The Dodgers were the favorites and took 7 games to beat the Blue Jays. The Blue Jays
They really won everything with the power friendship and memes. Lol!
Brunson over Shai kinda crazy lmao
Brunson over Ohtani is even crazier.
Should’ve won in the playoffs instead of epm grifting all RS
Not his fault that J dub and AJ Mitchell were hurt
Just simply win games, he would have been favored without them vs the Knicks
Nobody had a better year beginning to end than Brunson. Cup MVP, ECF MVP, Finals MVP and the ring.
But he still isn’t a top 3 player in his own sport. Seems weird to give him the award given athletes from other sports are eligible, feels like pandering to NY
Yet he was more successful against tougher competition than any of his so-called superiors
It’s a team game. His team played the best (and yes he was the best player on that team).
His team played the best because they had the best player as their teammate
Sure buddy
They have like a dozen comments in this thread. What are you betting that commenter is, Spurs fan overglazing the Knicks/Brunson to make the Spurs look better or a Knicks fan glazing their team while pretending to be a Spurs fan?
0 for 2
Maybe off reputation he’s “the best player”. Objectively he was thoroughly outclassed by OG and KAT in the finals.
No he wasn’t? Him being so garbage in 4⁄5 games is why the Knicks needed all those comebacks
They don’t win game 4 without OG’s absolute heroics on both sides of the court in the last seconds just for Brunson to brick the shit out of both attempted daggers
They don’t win any of those games without Brunson in the clutch either. It’s a team game, Brunson was just as important as OG and Kat in games 1, 2 and 4
Garbage? Go rewatch and see how many double teams he draws. The second he’s playing 1:1 he scores at will. The reason OG and KAT had so many good looks is because Brunson drawing double teams.
feels like pandering to NY
It’s a fan voted award show…
Ah that makes sense then, I assumed it was ESPN journalists or something. With a fan vote Brunson was a lock
A committee picks the final nominees but fans vote on the winner.
He literally did whatever he wanted to the DPOY. He’s probably the most clutch player in the NBA right now.
I don’t care what he won. He is not the best male athlete. SGA and Jokic are clearly better players.
Except the moment the playoffs start
Jokic had one bad playoff series and all of you are calling him worse than Jalen Brunson. What are we’re doing here
He had a really bad playoff series. If we want him to be the best player in the world, he also gets criticized when he plays badly (no, just because his counting numbers were big does not mean he played well)
That’s all it takes, honestly. Jokić, Shai, and Wemby all had their stocks plummet after being exposed against the right competition. Brunson never had that moment, because no one is actually capable of outplaying him in a faceoff
Everyone has bad playoff series. Brunsons will happen sooner or later
He’d have to be severely injured for that to happen. He’s one of the best, if not THE best, clutch performers of all time
Yeah yeah. They’re always better than Brunson until it’s time to beat Brunson.
I didn’t know games were played one on one. Interesting
Nobody is saying Brunson is a better basketball player than Jokić.
The question wasn’t, “Who’s the most talented player?” or “Who had the best regular season?”
It was, “Who had the biggest year in sports?”
Brunson captained the Knicks to their first title in over 50 years, won Finals MVP, and swept the major ESPY basketball categories. That’s exactly the kind of season the ESPYs exist to recognize.
People are arguing with the criteria they wish the award had instead of the criteria it actually uses.
You should get 2 minutes for instigating. Time out.
King on NY > King of Banjo Museum
Knicks win 5
Jalen Brunson not being the best NBA player and winning best NBA player is laughable.
Jalen Brunson winning best Male Athlete while not being the best NBA player and Ohtani existing is hilarious.
Fuck the fan voting popularity contests.
Ok…
The same award show gave Steph Curry a humanitarian award lmaoo. The Knicks players are deserving of awards, but I kinda devalue the prestige of the show altogether lol
What a lovely time to be alive
Doesn’t this happen every year with the NBA/Super Bowl champions
Could believe hellebuyck didn’t win the performance of the year award. His performance in the gold medal game was legendary. This whole show was just a New York suck fest
Does a single person in the world who doesn’t work for ESPN care about the ESPYs?
Another clean sweep. Nice.
Knicks couldn’t sweep the Finals, but they’d be damned if they weren’t sweeping the ESPYs.
4-1 is a gentleman’s sweep
Only if the loss is game 4.
I didn’t realize this, but it makes a lot of sense
The Knicks won a bunch of awards hosted and organized by an east coast media company that hires mostly New Yorkers and Bostonians? Shocking
People keep arguing “But SGA won MVP” or “Jokić is the better player.”
That’s arguing against an award nobody was giving out.
The ESPY for Best Male Athlete isn’t “Best Regular Season Player.” If it were, we’d just hand every major sports award to the MVP of each league every year.
Brunson’s case is different. He led the Knicks to a championship, won Finals MVP, won Best NBA Player, won Best Championship Performance, had the Best Play, and the Knicks won Best Team. That’s a year that transcends regular-season stats.
You can believe Jokić is the more talented player. You can believe SGA deserved NBA MVP. Neither of those contradicts Brunson deserving Best Male Athlete.
The NBA already rewarded the best regular-season player. The ESPYs rewarded the athlete whose performances defined the year. That’s why Brunson won.
[deleted]
Messi got the clutch gene from Brunson
Well deserved.
The Knicks will never EGOT.
Broadway Knicks could be on the way! They could Hamilton this whole thing, then you just get the TV show adaptation & a Sequel Movie!
Idk who was nominated but Caleb Williams should’ve won best play for the Rams game
Knicks supremacy continues.
Of course they did. Their home broadcast (ESPN) is running the show.
Their home broadcast is MSG Networks ?
I was making a joke about how ESPN clearly favors them because they are based in NYC.
Oh I see. ESPN is based in Bristol CT.
Knicks in 5
Analytically the Cavs won all of them
Where all the Pacers fans at bragging about hanging a banner for beating the Thibs-led Knicks twice in the Playoffs now? 😂😂😂
Hoosiers won the freaking college football playoffs. I’m still on cloud 49. Never would have dreamed that happening. My Pacers dream will come back one day.
I’m happy to say I know how you feel, man.
Never thought the Knicks would win the chip in the manner they did and have our star player/team stack hardware like they are now. Especially with all the jokes thrown at this squad for so long.
the glazings will continue until morale improves
The Knicks championship run was still fresh in the minds of the voters. It was a historic run in the country’s largest sport market, that also ended a long championship drought. It’s no surprise they swept the awards.
The year of Knicks. Let’s make it a decade haha
It’s their year
BRunson has 9…. NINE trophies this year… obviously not all equal and some like the CUP weren’t available before, but has an NBA player ever had so many in one season?
Dodgers repeated, the Hoosiers won the craziest cfb title maybe ever, and US wins the Gold medal( though I think laughing with Trump hurt them) but NY shows why it’s just bigger when they win.
lol helps to win in New York. Brunson isn’t the best male athlete or best NBA player and I don’t think anyone genuinely believes he is
Ohh trust me, all of us NY strongly believe this. Brunson goes toe to toe with any player in the playoffs and it’s not even close. He’s a playoff riser. Yeah he doesn’t go super hard in the regular season but when it matters most he shows up big time.
Best mascothausen
So, a college football team went undefeated and NEVER won a championship?? WoW!!! That’s why I HATE award shows.
<insert “you’re God Damn Right” Breaking Bad GIF here>
The gif is only popular in the nba east meme war sub. This sub is no fun lmao
Bam robbed by Ohtani 😡
seahawks, hoosiers football, dodgers, hurricanes, and michigan basketball were all better let’s be so fr😭🙏
Best team should be PSG if this wasn’t limited to just American teams, if it was though yea I think they deserve it