Jalen Brunson & dad Rick: A tale of two NBA Finals

The year is 1999, it’s summertime, and Jalen Brunson isn’t even three years old. His father, Rick, is the third-string point guard for the New York Knicks, representing the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals after a miracle playoff run as a No. 8 seed. The feisty Knicks are complete underdogs and facing the Western Conference’s top-seeded San Antonio Spurs.

And, to no one’s surprise, the deeper and more dominant Spurs make relative short work of the Knicks. San Antonio wins the series in five games on the back of Finals MVP and future Hall of Famer Tim Duncan.

Rick Brunson, who only played 17 regular season games and averaged 5.6 minutes, plays a whopping ten seconds in the Finals. All in Game 3, the Knicks’ only win.

Fast forward 27 years, and history is repeating itself. The New York Knicks are facing the San Antonio Spurs and both Jalen and Rick Brunson are in the picture again. Albeit under different circumstances.

The elder Brunson, now 53, has been a Knicks assistant since 2022. That same year, son Jalen signed a max contract with the Knicks in free agency, and here we are today. New York faces San Antonio for the Larry O’Brien again, but with one key difference.

Unlike the 1999 Knicks, Jalen Brunson and the 2025-26 Knicks have looked like they belonged from the get-go. They’re a strong No. 3 seed that won 54 games in the regular season. Perhaps New York could have pushed 60 if not for a 2-9 stretch in January.

Brunson hasn’t done this alone either. Knicks president Leon Rose has given his star point guard a viable supporting cast, namely Karl-Anthony Towns and Brunson’s former Villanova teammates Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart. Knicks lifer Mitchell Robinson owns the paint and OG Anunoby gives nothing on defense.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a team.

The 1999 Knicks, by comparison, were more of a squad. Consider that the neither of the team’s two most natural scorers, Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell, averaged over 20 points a game. In fact, they both posted nearly identical averages: Houston posted 16.3 per game, Spree a tick above at 16.4.

Not to mention the Knicks were without future Hall of Famer and leading scorer Patrick Ewing, who missed the Finals with a sore Achilles. That left journeyman backup Chris Dudley and a young Marcus Camby to cover both Duncan and “The Admiral” David Robinson in the middle.

New York was, in a nutshell, cooked. They were an aging, overmatched team who got hot at the right time in a lockout-shortened season. San Antonio was a well-coached, well-oiled machine behind Duncan and Robinson. Sean Elliott and veteran Mario Elie terrorized Houston and Sprewell on the wings. Point guard Avery Johnson looked like someone who could actually run an offense while Charlie Ward was basically a three-and-D.

The Knicks, even with some Larry Johnson heroics, were kind of just happy to be there.

This year, though? Things seem different. Knicks fans are feral as they take over 6th and 7th Avenue. Jalen Brunson and his teammates are playing a different, hungry kind of basketball. All while father Rick watches on and assists coach Mike Brown as needed.

There is every reason to believe that these New York Knicks can keep up with Victor Wembenyama and the San Antonio Spurs. The matchups make sense and there is no David & Goliath story, even with Wemby standing 7’4″.

The NBA Finals begin Wednesday night at 8:30 p.m. Time to see if the Knicks can actually compete.