Shaq reveals his true thoughts on Jalen Brunson: ‘Didn’t know he was this good’
· Yahoo Sports
To be fair to Shaquille O’Neal, when the Knicks signed Jalen Brunson as a free agent in 2022, there were plenty of folks who questioned the move.
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And after Brunson went for 45 points and was named NBA Finals MVP for leading the Knicks to the franchise’s first championship in 53 years, O’Neal conceded he never thought that highly of Brunson, either.
He said to Charles Barkley on “Inside the NBA”: “I owe you an apology. You’ve been saying for the past two years that Brunson has been the best free agent signing ever.”
“Ever,” Barkley interjected.
“Now, it is,” O’Neal added. “Now it becomes that.
“Now listen, we knew he was good, I didn’t know he was this good.”
Shaq on Jalen Brunson :
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) June 14, 2026
‘I didn’t know he was this good ‘ pic.twitter.com/K7skhFL0aE
The list of critics hating on Brunson and the Knicks after they signed him in free agency reads like a Who’s Who of basketball pundits.
“He too small,” Becky Hammon famously proclaimed of the 6-foot-2 former Villanova guard. “When your best player is small, you’re not winning.”
“Trading their first-round pick away and for what?” Stephen A. Smith asked. “To go all in in hopes of signing Jalen Brunson?”
“The saddest sweepstakes ever, the Jalen Brunson sweepstakes,” Nick Wright famously said on Fox. “Is Jalen Brunson one of the 10 best point guards in basketball?”
“He’s not as good as [Luka] Doncic with the Lakers, he’s not as good as [Nikola] Jokic with Denver, he’s not as good as [Victor] Wembanyama,” Chris “Mad Dog” Russo said.
In the end, of course, Brunson and his teammates, including the Villanova Knicks, had the last laugh.
And they ended a championship drought more than five decades in the making.
“I have no words,” Brunson said. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”
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