ESPN's metrics-driven player rankings have Jalen Brunson somewhere around the No. 25 range, and if you spent the spring watching him drag the New York Knicks through the 2026 Finals, that number is going to read like a typo. The reaction was instant and loud. "Rage bait." "Anything for clicks." New York has waited 53 years to have this argument, and it is going to have it at full volume.
Here is the thing about these lists, though. They are not lying to you on purpose. They are just measuring something different than what you remember.
Why is Jalen Brunson ranked around No. 25 in ESPN's NBA rankings?
Because the model is not watching the fourth quarter the way you were. Metric-based rankings tend to reward possession-level efficiency, defensive value, and size at the rim, and Brunson's profile has always been the kind that scores better in a building than on a spreadsheet. He is a 6-foot-something guard who wins with footwork, balance, and a total refusal to be sped up. Those things generate wins. They do not always generate the kind of numbers a model falls in love with.
But a Finals MVP is not an opinion. The Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 4-1 and Brunson was the reason the series never got interesting, and the same list that slotted him at 25 has nothing that explains that away. That's a tell about the tool, not about the player.
The list is having a strange week all over the league
Brunson is not the only one whose name went sideways on somebody's ranking this week. The lists are moving in ways that suggest the whole exercise is in flux.
| Ranking item | The number |
|---|---|
| Jalen Brunson, Knicks | around the No. 25 range |
| Lu Dort, Hawks | dropped 36 spots |
| Milwaukee Bucks, post-Giannis trade | one top-100 player |
Thirty-six spots for Dort is a bigger single-year swing than most players get in a career. One top-100 player in Milwaukee is a sentence that would have gotten you laughed out of the room two years ago. When the whole board lurches like that, the honest read is that the rankings are recalibrating to a league that just changed shape, and Brunson got caught in the churn.
New York Knicks injury news: the wrist under the confetti
The part of this that actually matters got about a tenth of the attention. Brunson acknowledged he underwent surgery on his left wrist in the offseason and has been cleared for 2026-27. That is the real story buried under the ranking fight.
A wrist is not a knee, but for a guard whose entire game is built on handle, deceleration, and finishing through contact with either hand, it is not nothing either. He played through a title run and then had it cut on. Nobody in New York seemed to know it was coming. Cleared is the word you want, and it is the word you got.
From the almanac: the last Knick to win Finals MVP before Brunson was Willis Reed in 1973, the same year that drought started. Fifty-three years between trophies, and the man who broke it is arguing with a ranking algorithm five months later. The league moves on quick.
What comes next for Brunson and the Knicks
Nothing about a September list survives contact with an actual season. Defending a championship is its own animal: every building gets loud, every scouting report gets sharper, every young guard in the league circles the date. Brunson has never needed motivation, but he is a collector of slights and this one arrived gift-wrapped.
What I'm watching next is the wrist, not the ranking. How the left hand looks in traffic, whether the finishing touch at the rim comes back at full strength, and whether New York manages his minutes early the way a team with a long spring in mind probably should. The list will sort itself out by March. It always does.
