Jalen Brunson is having, by a wide margin, the best season of his career. And the New York Knicks, in general, have played genuinely great basketball this year under Mike Brown.
It's clear that the coaching change after last season and a Conference Finals run, as controversial as it was at the time, is actually paying off.
A more structured offense, a smarter Brunson
The roles inside this Knicks roster are simply defined better.
The rotation has opened up a bit, the offense has improved, not a little, but a lot, the ball is moving more consistently, and the overall flow looks far more sustainable.
And because of that, Brunson is being used in a smarter way, in more advantageous spots, with more structure around him.
The result is that we're watching the best version of Brunson we've ever seen. Right now, in 35.5 minutes per game, he's putting up 29.5 points, 6.4 assists, and 3.3 rebounds, while shooting 38% from three on eight attempts per night, and 48% from the field overall.
The most important part is that it's translating to winning: the Knicks are second in the Eastern Conference with a 23–10 record.
Brunson
Brunson
Credit Getty Images via AFP - Scanpix
Is Jalen Brunson the best scorer in the NBA right now?
And now the real question, the one I want to dig into, is this: Is Brunson the best scorer in the NBA right now?
When you look at the combination of volume, efficiency, the way he generates points, and the scoring profile he has, it's a conversation that deserves to be taken seriously.
I mentioned that Mike Brown has genuinely elevated the Knicks' offense, and the advanced numbers back it up. Right now, New York sits second in the NBA in offensive rating at 122.2.
Those rankings move around a bit; sometimes they're second, sometimes third, but the bigger point is that all season long, it has basically been a three-team rotation at the top: Denver, Houston, and New York.
Those have been the clear offensive outliers this year.
A modernized Knicks offense built on spacing
And the Knicks' jump is not some vague "they look better" thing; you can see exactly what changed. The ball is moving with more purpose, and the biggest stylistic shift is that they're taking way more threes.
This season, the Knicks are attempting 39.6 threes per game, compared to 33.6 last season. That's a massive difference, and it's a real modernizing step in how they generate points.
That shift has directly impacted Brunson, too, as Mike Brown has clearly nudged him to become a higher-volume three-point shooter.
Brown
Brown
Credit REUTERS - Scanpix
Last season, Brunson took 6.1 threes per game; this season, he's up to 8.0 — basically two more threes every night.
The efficiency hasn't dipped at all: he's still at 38%, which is excellent, especially on that volume.
And when you add those extra three-point attempts into his scoring diet, it helps explain the leap in production, from around 26 points per game to 29.5.
Why Brunson doesn't score like a typical small guard
Now, the way Brunson scores is what makes him so fascinating, because he's not a typical small guard. He's an undersized back, but he doesn't play like someone who's giving something up physically.
Honestly, you can make the argument that he's one of the best undersized scorers we've ever seen, not just because of the volume, but because of how efficient he is while doing it — and because of the variety in his profile.
Most undersized scorers lean on quickness, craft, and pull-up shooting. Brunson has all of that, though not at an elite level because of his build, but what separates him is that he can play bully-ball at his height.
Because of his strength, low center of gravity, footwork, and balance, he can punish defenders physically.
He can attack from the low post, keep creating contact, draw fouls, and score in multiple ways using his incredible footwork and upper body strength.
That's what makes him more complete than basically any other undersized scorer archetype; he's not just surviving those matchups, he's controlling them.
A scorer who wins in every half-court environment
And when you break down his play types, you see a scorer who can win in every primary half-court environment.
Pick-and-roll still drives the profile; roughly 30–35% of his possessions come out of pick-and-roll, where he's outstanding: 1,026 points per possession with an extremely low turnover rate, under 10%, 9% to be precise.
That combination of creation and ball security is elite.
He's just as dangerous in isolation.
About 16% of his play types come from iso situations, and he's generating 1,048 points per possession there, again, excellent efficiency, especially considering the degree of difficulty and the defensive attention he draws.
Brunson
Brunson
Credit USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect-Scanpix
A new addition: off-ball and spot-up growth
And here's the new wrinkle this season: his spot-up frequency has jumped in a real way. That's a credit to Mike Brown and just putting him in different positions, more off-ball than last season.
He's now at about 15% of his play types coming out of spot-ups, whereas last season it was only 8%.
That's nearly double the frequency, and it's not a gimmick — he's efficient there too, at 1,082 points per possession.
That's a major evolution in his scoring menu, and it's another reason why his overall scoring profile is so hard to deal with.
There's no debate that Brunson is an incredible scorer.
The real comparison: Brunson vs Luka and SGA
The real question is whether he's a better scorer than Luka Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, because those three are, without question, the top scoring forces in the NBA right now.
The clear advantage Luka and SGA have over Brunson is that scoring comes more easily to them. Their size, height, and length simply give them natural efficiency edges.
No matter how strong Brunson is, no matter how much muscle he carries or how well he can play bully ball as an undersized guard, height and wingspan are advantages you can't ignore.
They directly impact shot creation, separation, and shot quality. It's objectively easier for Luka and SGA to create space and get clean looks, and that naturally shows up in the efficiency numbers.
If we look at the raw production, SGA, through 30 games this season, is averaging 32.1 points, shooting 55.1% from the field and 42.5% from three on 5.1 attempts.
SGA
SGA
Credit Imagn Images – Scanpix
Luka, on the other hand, through 22 games, is at 33.7 points per game, shooting 46.1% from the field and 32.2% from three, while taking a massive 10.5 threes per game.
Purely in terms of efficiency, SGA clearly stands out. Shooting over 55% from the field at that volume is elite by any standard.
He's also scoring about three points more per game than Brunson, and at this level, those margins matter. With players of this caliber, small numerical differences often decide big debates.
And that efficiency advantage for SGA shows up both on film and in the numbers. His shot profile is cleaner, the percentages are higher, and his size allows him to operate with more margin for error.
Where Brunson pushes back, and where he actually has real advantages, is in two key areas.
Three-point shooting and clutch scoring as separators
First, three-point shooting. Brunson takes significantly more threes and is, overall, the better high-volume three-point shooter.
Yes, SGA has bumped his percentage to around 42% this season, but the sample size is much smaller, and he's taking three fewer threes per game than Brunson.
And this isn't just about this season alone. If you zoom out and look at the broader sample, Brunson consistently makes more threes and profiles as the stronger shooter from deep.
The second edge Brunson has is clutch scoring. And this isn't narrative-driven; it's backed by both production and context.
He won Clutch Player of the Year last season for a reason. He decided games, over and over again, and was extremely efficient when the pressure was highest. The tighter the game, the better Brunson tends to look.
Now, it's also fair to acknowledge context here. Oklahoma City, with SGA, often doesn't play many tight endings. They break teams early, create large leads, and end up in blowouts.
That naturally limits how many true late-game, possession-by-possession situations SGA even gets to operate in.
So it's not that he can't do it — it's that he hasn't had to as often. Still, when you compare roles and situations, Brunson clearly feels more dominant and more proven in those moments.
The final threshold Brunson still needs to clear
At the end of the day, when everything is put together — watching the games, analyzing the styles, weighing efficiency against difficulty — to say unequivocally that Brunson is the most efficient, best scorer in the NBA, he probably needs to clear one final threshold: 50% shooting from the field. Right now, he's at 48%.
And that gap feels directly tied to his physical profile. At his size, he simply has to work harder for many of his points.
He often operates in tight spaces, has to manufacture separation, avoid contests, and finish through traffic, where taller players can shoot over or around defenders.
That extra difficulty shows up in the margins — and that's where Brunson still trails SGA in pure efficiency terms.
That doesn't diminish what Brunson is doing. It just explains why, at the absolute top of the scoring hierarchy, size still matters — even when the skill level is this high.
Vukašin Nedeljković
Vukašin played basketball competitively in his youth, and now contributes to Synergy Sports Technology and Sportradar regarding basketball analysis. He also has experience working as a journalist in Serbia and is passionate about writing basketball articles mainly focused on basketball X's and O's.
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