In any other year, Aaron Judge would have been Athlete of the Year in New York sports, hands down and All Rise. He hit 53 home runs and knocked in 124 and hit .331, a season to stand with the greatest seasons from the greatest Yankees. He had a slugging percentage of .688 and an on-base of .457 and an OPS of 1.144, the last three numbers even bigger for the big man than in 2022, when he hit 62.
But even with all that, and even with the way he tried to save the Yankees season when he rose up in the postseason at long last, even he didn’t matter in New York sports in 2025 the way Jalen Brunson did. It is because of the way Brunson made the Knicks matter again, the way he did the most — out of all of them — to make the Knicks the biggest game in town again.
Brunson was No. 1 for the year. Two 1’s, in his case, for No. 11, in a year when what he did seemed even bigger than what No. 99 did.
The Yankees have been the biggest game in town, a lot, as recently as the year before this one when they made it back to the World Series. The Giants became the biggest game in winning the two Super Bowls they’ve won in this century, even though it now seems as if those wins over the Patriots happened in the century before this one. Or maybe the one before that.
But it is the Knicks now, and by a lot, because of the ride they gave everybody last spring, when you were afraid to miss a game. It was Leon Rose who assembled that group and it was Tom Thibodeau who coached the living daylights out of it. And Brunson sure did have help. There were times when the Knicks were at their best — against the Pistons and the Celtics and really until Tyrese Haliburton made that crazy shot at the end of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals – when they did look like a basketball band out of the past at Madison Square Garden.
But more than any of them, this was Brunson’s team and Brunson’s time, a high old time that truly did have them dancing in the streets outside the Garden. There is so much talk from the new Knicks coach, Mike Brown, about Brunson’s MVP bona fides. But everybody saw what happened at the Garden last spring as the Knicks were making their run. All of Basketball New York saw and heard and even felt it. Jalen Brunson, the son of an old Knick and a child of the Garden, was the MVP of all that.
Of course he dropped 47 points on the Heat the other night, almost as a way of jump-starting his way into the New Year, and whatever possibilities it will bring for these Knicks in the basketball sprint to come.
Judge had his playoff moment this past October against the Blue Jays on a night when the Yankees were playing for their playoff lives, hitting that Roy Hobbs’ shot off the leftfield foul pole. That swing brought Yankee Stadium all the way back to life, filling the place with noise and hope, even if all that Game 3 did was give the Yankees one more night of baseball season.
Except. Except it wasn’t Brunson’s 3-pointer against the Pistons, Game 6 of that second-round series, the one that put the Knicks back in the Eastern Conference final for the first time in a quarter-century. Five seconds left. Guarded by Ausar Thompson. Backing him down. Getting ready to cross him over. The game was tied at 113-all. The Knicks were going to close the Pistons out, or they were going back to New York for Game 7, a year after they had lost a home Game 7 to the Pacers. There was no question who would take the shot. Maybe there should have been no question about Jalen Brunson making it.
Here is what Thibodeau said about his star after the game and the series were over:
“He’s at his best when his best is needed, and he’s done it all year. That’s what makes him special.”
The great Mike Breen was on the call that night. Breen was made for the moment, too, the excitement in his voice matching the excitement you felt watching Brunson run down the clock from 20 seconds and then make the shot from the top of the key with just over four seconds left. Knick fans will never need to replay Mike’s call or remember what it sounded like:
“…Brunson puts up the three……..BANG!…..BANG!….Jalen Brunson hits the three!…..”
Breen has seen the whole show from Brunson in New York. I asked him Wednesday about what it’s looked like from where he’s been sitting, so often next to Walt Frazier the way he was that night in Detroit last spring.
“The amount of work (Brunson) has put in over the years was built for that moment,” Mike Breen said. “He feels no fear about taking the big shot, whether he misses or not. The confidence comes out of the work he’s put in day after day and year after year. In his own humble way, he understands his responsibility. He won’t talk about it, or admit it. He just knows.”
The sports life of the city truly did organize around the Knicks for those three playoff rounds. And unified the sports life of the city at the same time. Yankee fans and Mets fans root for the Knicks. Giants fans and Jets fans root for the Knicks. The only way to properly explain it is that it is basketball and it is New York, and the Knicks once again owned it the way they used to.
The star of it all was Jalen Brunson. His ball, the way it was Clyde’s ball once. His moment. His year.
