Jalen Brunson was the Knicks’ captain long before it was official
NY Post
You earn the all-lowercase version of the word before anyone gets around to capitalizing the first letter. That’s when you know you have a genuine captain. Willis Reed, who probably carried the title as well and as proudly as any New York athlete ever has, wasn’t officially named Captain of the Knicks until Sept. 21, 1967.
But he’d been their captain without debate far longer.
“Willis was the captain and the leader,” Bill Bradley once wrote. “The role seemed natural for him and he was respected by everyone. He was always the one to speak up when Red [Holzman] asked if anyone had anything to add.”
Or as Clyde Frazier put it as recently as last winter: “You know someone is the captain when you can’t imagine anyone else in that role besides him.”
Funny, too. Clyde actually was a Knicks captain, his last three years on the Knicks, after Reed’s knees finally forced him to retire. And yet even Frazier understood: when he was in the same room with Willis, only one of them would ever be called “Captain.”
Jalen Brunson has been the captain of the Knicks from the second he signed his name at the bottom of his contract 25 months ago. He’s been their captain in the gym — first in, last out — and on the court, where he led them to back-to-back playoff berths for the first time in 23 years. He is Tom Thibodeau’s eyes, ears and voice on the court.
Suddenly, someone had hit a rewind button and everyone had been transported back seven months. It was early spring instead of late fall, it was broiling hot outside the arena walls and not freezing cold. Everyone was back at TD Garden. There were 19,156 frenzied fans on their feet begging for blood, poised for the kill.
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