The Knicks paid tribute to their captain in a magnificent way.
In what was perhaps unprecedented in the NBA as a ceremony/event solely to introduce a team captain, the Knicks held MSG in August and honored Jalen Brunson’s new title with words from some of New York sports greats from the past 50-plus years.
Derek Jeter, Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning, David Wright, Aaron Judge, Michael Strahan, Mark Messier and Walt Frazier congratulated Brunson in a video broadcast on the arena’s Jumbotron.
“It’s been fun watching you grow and get better every year,” Jeter said. “I look forward to continuing that, but also getting the Knicks back to where they belong.”
A sign featuring Brunson with the slogan “New York’s New Captain” was hung outside MSG, and inside the arena, former Knicks captain Patrick Ewing was in the stands listening to a narrated video introduction of Brunson.
“People want to be around you, Jalen,” Ewing said. “You’re a born leader. You were born to play basketball for the Knicks.”
Branson agreed after taking the stage.
“It means a lot to me [to be captain] “It’s what I was born to do,” Brunson told MSG Network host Alan Hahn, who was joined by James Dolan, Leon Rose, Tom Thibodeau, Ben Stiller, Mikal Bridges and John Starks. “No matter what field I was in, whether I was a doctor or a lawyer or whatever, whatever I was going to be in life, I was going to be a leader.
“My parents taught me to never be a follower, always be a leader. I took that to heart. They never said to me, ‘Now is the time to be a leader, go do it.’ It was just something they instilled in me, so it just came very naturally.”
“I obviously said yes,” Brunson said of team president Leon Rose asking him to be captain. “Who wouldn’t want to be the captain of a franchise like this?”
Still, Brunson was surprised by what he saw Thursday. Captaining an NBA team, unlike in hockey or soccer, is often an afterthought.
For example, the former captain of the Knicks is Lance Thomas.
But Brunson connects with the city and its fanbase on a different level, not to mention he just signed a team-friendly contract extension that will keep him with the team through at least 2028.
“I didn’t know [a ceremony for the team captain] “It was popular, especially in the NBA,” Brunson says. “It was really cool.”
Under Brunson’s best, the Knicks won 50 games last season (their most since 2013) and advanced to the second round for the second straight year.
Brunson said the goal next season is to reach the conference finals, a streak the team has not made in 24 years.
“What can we do to get out of the second round? That’s our goal,” he said, later explaining, “It’s nice to hear we’re the favorites, but I think we have to go into training camp without saying that. … Obviously, I said we want to get out of the second round because we’ve been in the second round two years in a row. But you can’t go back to the second round so soon into the season. You have to go back and start all over again.”
“We have some new members and some familiar faces. What can we do with that? What kind of team do we want to be?”
