Jalen Brunson is a Finals MVP, but the Market doesn't Agree

A championship, a unanimous Finals MVP, and New York's first title since 1973. The market had already priced most of it in before Game 5 even started.

By Hardwood Index

The regular season was the setup, not the story

Jalen Brunson played 74 of 82 games, missing time here and there to an ankle issue in January and a neck strain in March that snapped a 27-game iron-man streak. When healthy, he ran the Knicks offense at 26.0 points, 3.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists a night, shooting 46.7 percent from the field and 36.9 percent from three. Solid numbers for a lead guard. Not the story anyone was going to remember about this season.

Games: 74
Minutes: 35.0
Points: 26.0
Rebounds: 3.3
Assists: 6.8
FG%: 46.7
3P%: 36.9
FT%: 84.1
TS%: 58.0

New York's first trophy of the year came in December

The Knicks beat San Antonio in the NBA Cup final back on December 16, rallying from a fourth-quarter deficit to win 124-113 in Las Vegas. OG Anunoby led New York with 28 points, Brunson added 25 and took home Cup MVP. It was a preview nobody fully registered at the time: New York and San Antonio would meet again in June with a lot more on the line.

The playoff run

Brunson's postseason averages ticked up across the board: 28.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 6.1 assists on 46.5 percent shooting over 19 games. New York swept Cleveland in the East finals, setting up the Finals rematch with a Spurs team led by Victor Wembanyama that had knocked out the defending champion Thunder to get there.

The Finals themselves were built entirely around double-digit comebacks. The Knicks trailed in all four of their wins, including a 29-point hole in Game 4 that they erased to win 107-106. Brunson averaged 32.6 points, 4.6 assists and 4.2 rebounds for the series, closing it out with 45 points on the road in Game 5, a number that ties Michael Jordan for the most points scored to clinch a title away from home. All 11 media voters gave him Finals MVP. New York won its first championship since 1973.

What it cost him

Brunson played through discomfort in his left wrist and forearm for most of the Finals run. He's since had surgery on it, with an expected recovery window of at least two months before training camp. It's the kind of offseason procedure that barely registers next to a parade, but it's also the first real question mark hanging over a Knicks core, alongside Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges and Anunoby, that just proved it can win in June.

What the market saw

The chart at the top of this page is the same one on his market page, so you can line the price up against the season yourself. The volatility through the fall and winter tracks the ankle and neck absences. The climb into spring is the playoff run and the sweep of Cleveland. The Finals barely moves the needle beyond where it already was, and that's the real signal here. Brunson entered the season already priced as a top-tier engine coming off the best regular season of his career and a heartbreaking Game 7 exit the year before. Winning the title he'd been building toward for two years confirmed what the market had already bet on rather than changing the bet, and the wrist surgery is the one thing keeping this chart from just running straight up through the summer.