Why Brunson Is Top 50 All Time, a Finals Mega-Mailbag, and NBA Fake Trade Season With Joe House

Jalen Brunson just did something that only a handful of small guards in NBA history have ever done: he was the best player on a championship team. For Bill Simmons and his longtime friend Joe House, that fact alone forces a complete re-evaluation of where Brunson belongs in the league’s all-time hierarchy. The conversation zooms out from Brunson to examine the broader implications of the Knicks’ title—what it means for the Spurs’ future, which stars might be on the move in a suddenly volatile trade market, and whether the old rules about needing a top-five player to win still hold.

The Brunson Pyramid Case

Simmons argues that Brunson’s playoff run—averaging 33 points in the Finals while playing nearly 40 minutes a night—elevates him into the top 50 players of all time, and possibly as high as the low 40s. The key mechanism here is the "peak over longevity" principle that has always governed Simmons’s basketball pyramid. He values a player who can carry a team to a title over one who accumulates regular-season accolades without the ring. “Would you rather have 15 years of somebody who was really, really good and made a bunch of All-NBA teams but couldn’t win a title if he was your best guy?” Simmons asks. “Or would you rather have a shorter window with somebody whose peak you could win a title with?”