Knicks’ Jalen Brunson Predicted To Make First All-Star Team This Season

New York Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson has been predicted to make his first All-Star Team this season by an NBA writer. Zach Buckley of Bleacher Report wrote about why he thinks Brunson will be an All-Star in 2024.

“Brunson’s All-Star case is much simpler, though. If he’s simply as effective as he was last season, that might do the trick,” Buckley wrote. “He was one of only nine players to average 24 points and six assists, and he was one of just two players in that group—along with two-time All-Star Trae Young—to not make the All-Star Game.”

Brunson appeared in 68 games for the Knicks last season. The lefty averaged 24.0 points, 3.5 rebounds and 6.2 assists while shooting 49.1% from the field, 41.6% from beyond the arc and 82.9% from the free-throw line.

The 27-year-old Brunson signed a four-year, $104 million contract with the Knicks last summer after spending the first four years of his career with the Dallas Mavericks. Brunson has career averages of 14.3 points, 3.1 rebounds and 4.2 assists with the Mavericks and Knicks.

In the 2023 playoffs versus the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat, Brunson took his game to another level. He averaged 27.8 points, 4.9 rebounds and 5.6 assists in 11 games. The Knicks beat the Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs in five games but lost to the Heat in the second round in six games.

“He can skip the feeling-out period this season and get right into destroying opposing defenses,” Buckley wrote. “If he and the Knicks are merely as good (let alone better) as last season, that should get him an invite.”