New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson had another A-1 performance, dropping 21 points (+24) and pacing the Knicks to a convincing 122-84 win over Nikola Jokic and the defending World Champions on Thursday night.
Despite his success leading this Knicks rise, Brunson continues to get shots thrown at his game by former WNBA greats. First it was Las Vegas Stars head coach Becky Hammon saying Brunson wasn’t a “1A dude” and was too short to have that kind of impact on a championship team.
Comments like that is what probably led to Brunson being snubbed from the Eastern Conference All-Star squad.
Then NBA analyst and WNBA legend Candace Parker recently let her Knicks hate shine through by doubling down on Hammon’s statement when discussing her All-Star starter choices on “NBA on TNT”
Parker tried to attack Brunson’s past playoff performance with the Knicks to support her opinion that he’s not a consistently reliable top tier player.
“Last year in the playoffs, great first round, second round not so much,” Parker confidently said.
Her statement happened to be inaccurate and immediately she was taken to task by pro-Knicks social media accounts. One particular outspoken critic was Brunson’s teammate Josh Hart. Hart knows Brunson as well as anyone, as both are also alumni of the Villanova hoops factory.
Candace Parker Was Wrong About Jalen Brunson’s Playoff Performance
As the Tweet asserts, Brunson actually performed statistically better in his second round matchup against Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference semifinals than in the first round against Cleveland last season. Against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the former second-round pick recorded 24.0 points and 4.8 assists per contest while shooting 43.7% from the field.
Hart tweeted out: “Shows you some of them don’t actually watch basketball,” which was clearly a shot at Parker and also Hammon, who created a few days of heated social media discussions after her opinion about Brunson’s impact.
Some saw it as disparaging, others saw it as her being honest. Although if size was a huge factor in a coach deciding whether to count on Hammon or not, the 5-foot-6 guard would have never dominated the record books at Colorado State and then had an impactful 13-year WNBA career. Hammon was a six-time All-Star and was selected as a Top 15 player in WNBA history. Her career is the personification of “height doesn’t measure heart.”
Does Candace Parker Just Hate the Knicks?
Parker just seems to not like the Knicks or New York City very much, and that’s understandable. She’s from Chicago, so she is born with a natural hate of the Big Apple. The Knicks haven’t been very good for more than a decade and haven’t contented for a title in almost two decades, so the prognosticators and analysts made disrespecting the Knicks a rite of passage almost for media heads not from New York.
They were low-hanging fruit for jokes on how to not run an organization while being the most lucrative and valued NBA franchise. It’s like kicking the big dog when he’s down. You don’t get many opportunities to do that.
Now that the Knicks finally have organizational stability and are making sound decisions and acquiring the proper talent to be successful, those basketball media members who have eaten and built careers out of their relationships with — and opinions about, Golden State and Cleveland and LeBron and Steph Curry and James Harden and Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving — are having a hard time transitioning to the present.
The Knicks (28-17) currently own a five-game win streak, are fourth-best in a tough Eastern Conference and they are no longer doormats. Madison Square Garden is hopping every game, and the New York basketball swag is back.
Despite All-Star Snub, Brunson’s Impact Undeniable
At the very least, fans are no longer going to games with garbage bags over their heads, and owner James Dolan hasn’t had a confrontation or alienated a former player, fan or miscellaneous person walking past the arena in some time.
Candace Parker’s false narrative would have flown by the wayside two seasons ago. Now that the Knicks have improved and turned the franchise around to a large degree, you can’t just be saying any old thing and expecting New York fans, especially, to just let you rock.
In trying so hard to diminish the accomplishments of Jalen Brunson and maybe show support to her fellow WNBA legend Becky Hammon, the usually shrewd Parker showed a flaw in the integrity of her journalism. That’s the nature of the media game. The more your face is on the screen, the more thorough you have to be.
Also, when every take is a hot take, you risk a flaming backlash if the listeners see you slipping at all. And the players are keeping score. When you come after one of theirs and then show love to another player on another team, then you have to come 100 percent correct in your takes to maintain your integrity.
Being loud and wrong should not be a thing. Candace Parker got caught slipping for a moment.
