Jalen Brunson spent years hearing what he couldn’t do. Too small, some said. Not a real first option, others argued. That noise followed him into the Finals, and it hasn’t fully gone away even now.
Draymond Green has never been shy about weighing in on Brunson’s game, and his latest comments bring a new name into the conversation. This time, it’s a former MVP who Green feels deserves more respect than he’s currently getting.
Draymond Green Breaks Down the MVP vs Championship Debate
Green brought up a conversation on his show, that Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter had about regular season MVP versus winning a championship, and used it to make a bigger point about how fans and media rank players.
“T-Mac and Vince Carter, they were speaking about a regular season MVP or a championship,” Green said on The Draymond Green Show. “And I wanted to say something that was mentioned on there, which is T-Mac saying, oh man, well you’re the 11th to 12th best player on the championship. It’s the MVP. Of course. No one’s arguing that. Now let’s have a real conversation. A championship for a first option and an MVP, how I know the argument doesn’t work when you weigh the two.”
That’s when Green brought Brunson into it directly, using him as the clearest example of a first option who has now done exactly what the debate demands.
“Jalen Brunson just won a championship as a first option. And what I’m certain of is all of you basketball people hold Jalen Brunson at this point right now in a higher regard than you hold Derrick Rose.”
(Via @DraymondShow )
He was quick to add that his own opinion of Rose hasn’t changed, even if he thinks the public narrative around him has drifted.
“That’s not the regard that I hold Derrick Rose in. I hold Derrick Rose at a very high regard. But I watch you people saying Derrick Rose isn’t even a Hall of Famer, which I think is blasphemous.”
Green pointed to Dirk Nowitzki as further proof of his point, someone who won both an MVP and a championship and still gets remembered far more for the title. To him, that gap says everything about how legacies actually get written.
Why Brunson Keeps Coming Up in These Conversations
Green wasn’t always in Brunson’s corner. Before the Finals even started, he questioned whether the Knicks had a real number one option capable of getting them over the hump, and pointed to other stars as proof of what that level looked like.
Brunson spent the Finals proving him wrong. He closed out San Antonio in Game 5 on the road, scoring close to half his team’s points and leaving little room for argument. Green has since admitted as much publicly, which is part of why his comparisons now carry more weight than they used to.
That history matters here. Green isn’t throwing out praise lightly, and he isn’t just being contrarian for headlines either. He watched Brunson do the thing he doubted, and now he’s using that experience to push back on how quickly the league moves on from past MVPs.
Draymond Green’s Latest Take Puts Knicks Star Jalen Brunson in the Spotlight