Jalen Brunson’s hardware haul keeps growing, and Victor Wembanyama keeps showing up on the wrong side of it.
A month after Brunson helped the New York Knicks finish off their run to the franchise’s first championship in 53 years, he added another piece to the collection by winning the 2026 ESPY Award for Best NBA Player. Wembanyama was in the mix again, but Brunson also finished ahead of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokić.
The Knicks had a strong showing at the ESPYs overall. OG Anunoby took home Best Play for his tip-in during New York’s Game 4 comeback, and the team was also honored as Best Team. Brunson added another individual prize as well, winning Best Athlete - Men's Sports.
Since arriving in New York in July 2022, Brunson has built a résumé that keeps making old doubts look ridiculous. He has become the kind of player who keeps turning skepticism into another trophy, and the line “Everybody is better than Jalen Brunson unless it's time to be better than Jalen Brunson.” has aged exactly the way Knicks fans would want.
That championship run was only the latest chapter. In December, the Knicks won the 2025 Emirates NBA Cup, with Brunson earning MVP honors after once again getting the better of Wemby. The playoffs brought more silverware: New York captured the Bob Cousy Trophy as Eastern Conference champions after beating the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Brunson claimed the Larry Bird Trophy as the series MVP.
Then came the biggest individual prize of all. Brunson was awarded the Bill Russell Trophy as NBA Finals MVP.
Even in a season that ended in disappointing fashion, Brunson still picked up the Clutch Player of the Year award. He led the NBA with 5.6 points per game in clutch situations last season, shooting 51.5% from the field and 85% from the free-throw line in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter and overtime.
There’s more on the shelf, too. During NBA All-Star weekend this year, Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Allan Houston formed Team Knicks and won the Shooting Stars competition, beating Team All-Star, Team Cameron, and Team Harper. They put up 31 points in the first round and 47 in the second.
Over the course of his Knicks tenure, Brunson has won nine Player of the Week awards and three Player of the Month awards, coming in February 2023, March 2024, and December 2025. He has also received MVP votes every season in New York, finishing 12th in 2022-2023, fifth in 2023-2024, and tied for tenth this season with James Harden and Evan Mobley.
Long before all of that, Brunson was already collecting major honors. He won National College Player of the Year in 2018 at Villanova, where he and Mikal Bridges won two NCAA national championships. Josh Hart won one in 2016.
For a player once tagged as undersized, the trophy case tells a different story now. Brunson has become the face of a championship team, the captain of the Knicks, and a constant answer to every doubt thrown his way.
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