Jalen Brunson has been the No. 1 topic of conversation this offseason around the basketball world. The NBA Finals MVP helped deliver the New York Knicks their first NBA championship in 53 years. After dropping 45 points in the closeout, Game 5 of the NBA Finals, Brunson has seemingly become the unofficial Mayor of New York City.
Brunson has been spotted virtually everywhere this offseason, making appearances at WWE events, charity golf tournaments, and even Rucker Park. Every Brunson-related conversation that could be dug-up, and debated, has resurfaced as well in the process.
One recent conversation, between Max Kellerman and Rich Paul, isn’t resurfacing. This is a new one. And it’s an unbelievably hot-take by Kellerman, on where Brunson ranks as compared to the current, back-to-back NBA MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Max Kellerman Drops Jalen Brunson-Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Hot-Take
On a recent episode of Kellerman and Paul’s podcast, “Game Over”, Kellerman decided to compare Brunson to Gilgeous-Alexander. They both played the San Antonio Spurs in the playoffs. Brunson advanced. Gilgeous-Alexander did not. Kellerman used that as the basis for his argument, and sprinted with it.
“Here we have an almost perfect real world experiment…SGA and Jalen Brunson play the same position, modern NBA pick-and-roll, point guard, the whole stuff…They both played the same team. They (the San Antonio Spurs) deployed the same defensive scheme to stop that guy. It worked on SGA. They did it to Brunson and it worked the first two games, but because Brunson is better than SGA, meaning he’s more valuable than SGA, he was able to make adjustments,” Kellerman said.
“SGA and Jalen Brunson play the same position, modern NBA, pick and roll, foul baiting point guards. They both have the same team. San Antonio deployed, the same defensive scheme to stop that guy it worked on
The entire episode can be found anywhere podcasts are found, but this portion of the conversation was posted to X by JayTakes (@SportsWithJay0).
Kellerman says Brunson is better than Gilgeous-Alexander. Kellerman is using the transitive property (if A beats B, but A loses to C, than C is better than B). This comparison comes after the Oklahoma City Thunder lost to the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals while the Knicks beat the Spurs in the NBA Finals.
Kellerman Doubles Down on Brunson-SGA Opinion
The real world doesn’t exactly work that way, but Kellerman made the statement, and he didn’t stop there in defending himself.
“It’s because Jalen Brunson’s basketball brain is working overtime, reading and reacting, doing what he had to bring his team. It’s not like the Knicks blew them out every game, they had to come back every game,” Kellerman said.
(Rich) Paul interjected, saying it was Brunson’s will to never give up that got the Knicks over the hump.
“You say his brain, I’m gonna go with his heart, because you have to have short memory in those situations, especially when you’re not shooting the ball well. And he was just resilient,” Paul said.
Kellerman and Paul weren’t necessarily disagreeing with each other, but the remainder of the debate turned into a healthy back-and-forth over Brunson vs. Gilgeous-Alexander.
“You’re going to be hard-pressed to find a more perfect example of two guys playing the same position, doing similar things for their team, against the same team, in the same moments, and one guys team won, and the other guys team lost,” Kellerman said.
“The only thing I’ll say to that though, Max, I do feel like SGA saw a different San Antonio spurs team. Because that Spurs team the Knicks saw had just exuded a lot of their energy. And the fact that they got over the hump to beat OKC. In essence, I think a little bit of that was as if they had won that championship and not realize, oh, we’ve got four more wins to go,” Paul said.
Brunson vs. SGA Statistically
Brunson, in his fourth season with the Knicks, continued his stellar play. He averaged 26.0 points, 6.8 assists, 3.3 rebounds, and 2.6 made 3-pointers per game. He was an All-Star and made an All-NBA team (second), both for the third consecutive season. And for the fifth straight season, his points per game average increased during the playoffs (28.4 this season) as compared to the regular season.
The former Clutch Player of the Year, Brunson (2025), clearly takes his game to another level when the lights are brightest. Gilgeous-Alexander is also the defending, Clutch Player of the Year.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s resume speaks for itself. He’s won the past two regular-season NBA MVP Awards. And was also the NBA Finals MVP when the Thunder won it all in 2025. He ranked No. 2 this past season in scoring (31.1 points per game), trailing only Luka Doncic. And Gilgeous-Alexander holds the record for most consecutive games scoring at least 20 points in NBA history (140). That streak remains active.
Max Kellerman Makes Wild Jalen Brunson vs. SGA Comparison