CLEVELAND — It’s not quite the recognition Mike Brown has repeatedly called for.
But Jalen Brunson has again been recognized as one of the league’s premier talents.
He was named to the All-NBA Second Team for the third straight season.
He averaged 26.0 points and 6.8 assists per game in the regular season.
“He’s been doing this year after year after year since he got here in New York,” Brown said on Sunday. “We’ve had a fantastic season. The numbers that he puts up are off the charts.”
Brown has constantly called for Brunson to be in the MVP conversation, but he got zero votes for first, second, third, fourth or fifth place.
“He’s also doing it two ways, and people aren’t talking about him leading the league in charges,” Brown said. “And there are other guys out there that get mentioned a lot and well deserved, well deserved. I’m not discounting them. But one or two of them might be strictly offense. Another one might be better defensively than offensively, you know? And he’s showing his metal by leading a top-three team in the conference not just with his scoring, not just with six to seven assists a game but also leading, leading the league in charges. And that should go a long way, and I hope going forward that the voters really take all of that in consideration.”
Brunson was joined on the second team by Jaylen Brown, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant and Donovan Mitchell.
Ahead of him, Brunson was beaten out by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cade Cunningham, Luka Doncic, Victoria Wembanyama and Nikola Jokic on the first team.
