Can New York Knicks Guard Jalen Brunson Win MVP in 2024-25?

Over the last two seasons,

Jalen Brunson

has proven himself as one of the best point guards in the NBA. Finishing fifth in MVP voting last season, Brunson has gone from being touted as an overpaid free agency signing to becoming the

New York Knicks

franchise player and taking a massive pay cut to ensure that his team can continue to build upon their already solid foundation for seasons to come.

As we head into the 2024-25 season with the Knicks roster having improved on nearly every front, we look at the three things that Jalen Brunson can do to better his odds of winning the MVP for 2024-25.

Lead the Knicks to the Top Seed

The Knicks need to threaten the Celtics for Brunson to make an MVP case

While likely the most difficult task on this list, finishing the season atop the Conference would be the easiest route for Brunson to become MVP. While he finished fifth in the award’s voting last season as the leader of the Conference’s second seed, they were the second seed in a Conference that was very tight beyond its top spot.

The final standings of the 2023-24 had the eighth-seeded

Miami Heat

being only four games behind the second-place Knicks, while they were a full 14 games back of the top-seeded

Boston Celtics

. In hindsight, it isn’t difficult to see how his team’s placement may have affected the perception of Brunson by the league’s MVP voters. Sure, they had the second-best record in their conference, but had they lost just four more games, they’d have been in a Play-In spot.

Now, considering that Brunson led his team to their highest playoff berth in over a decade while being one of two Knicks players to start more than 46 games (the other being

Donte DiVincenzo

, who started in 63 games to Brunson’s 77), this was a pretty remarkable result. With a (hopefully) healthy roster for the majority of the upcoming season, it isn’t outlandish to think that the Knicks may be able to not only close the gap between themselves and the Celtics but come out in front, finishing the season as the number one seed for the first time in over 30 years.

Of course, there will be multiple factors that contribute to the team’s success outside of Brunson’s play, but the team’s newly-appointed captain finishing the 2023-24 campaign with numbers like last year while boasting the best record in the conference? That would be a tough case to argue against.

Brunson Needs to Score at a Higher Level

Without sacrificing efficiency, Brunson needs to improve his offensive volume

Brunson has already exceeded any fan expectations that were in place when he initially signed with the Knicks. He’s been an absolute tour-de-force on the offensive end for two seasons, with his footwork and elite shot creation, specifically in the mid-range, making him a nightmare to guard for opposing teams.

Last season he was able to jump from an average of 24 points per game to 28.7 points per game with just a nominal drop-off in his efficiency both from the field (going from a FG% of .491 to .479) and from beyond the arc (dropping from a 3P% of .416 to .401).

During the 2024 playoffs, however, while he averaged 32.4 points per game, he did so on the lowest playoff shooting splits of his career. Partially the result of the hand he was dealt, being given most of the team’s offensive looks as they tried to overcome what seemed like an evergrowing list of injuries, it is still something that can’t become a trend.

To increase his odds of securing the MVP, Brunson will have to, at the very least, maintain last season’s level of efficiency, while putting up a similar point average or better. There’s a reason the team looks to him in nearly every offensive situation, but he cannot be relied on to score on every possession, nor should he be forcing up shots.

Yes, his innate ability to put defenders off balance with crafty footwork leads to great looks, but he should not settle for a semi-contested fadeaway whenever he recognizes a possession going stale. With the players surrounding him this season, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a better option than settling for a tough look.

Brunson Will Have to Be One of the NBA’s Best Passers

Brunson has seen his assist numbers improve in the past

Brunson made a pretty sizable leap as a passer between the regular season and the playoffs last year. After finishing the season with an average of 6.7 assists per game, the guard jumped to an impressive 7.5 assists per game during the postseason, with his average during the excellent first-round series against the

Philadelphia 76ers

being an impressive 9.0 assists per game. In utilizing the attention he drew as the team’s primary ball handler and scorer, he was able to set his teammates up to succeed, being the focal point of the team’s system, leading them in scoring and assists by a sizable margin.

With the addition of

Mikal Bridges

, the return of

OG Anunoby

and

Julius Randle

, as well as the emergence of DiVincenzo as a legitimate threat from deep, Brunson is going into this season in a better position than he’s ever been in to grow as a facilitator. Not only will that growth contribute to the surrounding players improving, but from a numbers perspective, he will be inching closer to averaging a double-double, which can’t hurt when looking at the averages of the most recent MVPs and runner-ups.

If Brunson can achieve any of these three things, he will find himself in MVP conversations much like last season, but a combination of the three would make him hard to argue against. Being the clear first option for the Knicks and leading them to their first number-one seed in 30 years while improving his play and making his teammates better is no small ask, but it would make for a pretty undeniable MVP campaign.

All statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference.