Jalen Brunson enters the 2026-27 season as an NBA champion and Finals MVP after leading the New York Knicks to their first title since 1973. Amid the summer-long plaudits for Mike Brown’s team, ESPN’s rankings also reflected the Knicks’ postseason success, placing franchise star Brunson at No. 6 among the league’s top 100 players. But only days later, someone from ESPN’s own building questioned that placement.

Dean Oliver, their in-house analytics expert, examined the earlier rankings using several advanced player-rating systems and listed Brunson’s No. 6 spot as one of the four placements he believed the ESPN insider panel got wrong! But why?

“Our last view of Brunson is him carrying the Knicks to a fourth-quarter comeback in Game 5 of the NBA Finals,” Oliver wrote. “He was tremendous in New York’s run to the championship but that leads to the bias that he will maintain it.”

Oliver’s argument is not that Brunson’s championship run was undeserved. Instead, he questioned whether that recent success should carry enough weight to make the Knicks guard the sixth-best player for the entire season…

“Brunson has always been limited a bit by his size (6-foot-2, 190 pounds) and his defense, something the metrics perhaps see and remember more than the seven panelists remember the late buckets he poured in to win the Finals,” Oliver continued. “Those problems are likely to persist.”

The postseason numbers, in particular, support Brunson. He averaged 11.2 fourth-quarter points in the NBA Finals, the most by a guard. Overall, Brunson was second only to Shaquille O’Neal in 1995 and 2000 in this metric.

ESPN’s review considered several advanced player-rating systems, including ESPN’s Net Points, DARKO, LEBRON, EPM and RAPM. But Oliver also used those metrics to counter the panel’s assessment of Brunson.

Oliver also pointed out that Brunson’s lofty placement wasn’t just recency bias, but “New York media bias.” He then cited Game 4 of the Finals, when Brunson missed a shot before OG Anunoby scored the putback to seal the Knicks’ victory.

“That bias might also help you forget that Brunson missed the shot in the most iconic image from the Finals, when OG Anunoby swooped in for the putback game-winner to clinch Game 4.”

Oliver ultimately put the difference into perspective. The metrics do not push Brunson outside the league’s upper tier, but they place him well below the panel’s No. 6 projection.

“The metrics place Brunson around the No. 25 range heading into the season. That’s not a huge gap. He’s elite, just not No. 6 at least not during the regular season.”

That distinction matters because ESPN’s NBA Rank is designed to project player contributions for the 2026-27 regular season. Seven ESPN panelists created the 2026 edition: Ben Golliver, Vincent Goodwill, Zach Kram, Bobby Marks, Dave McMenamin, André Snellings, and Matt “Stats” Williams. In previous seasons, more than 100 ESPN insiders, reporters, editors and producers contributed to the rankings.

Brunson was not the only placement questioned in the Oliver audit. The same analysis raised concerns about several players, including Jaylen Brown at No. 14 and the decision to leave Toronto’s Collin Murray-Boyles outside the top 100.

The rankings have also drawn reactions from the Knicks themselves. Josh Hart, ranked No. 89, responded to his ranking on social media.

“They [are] always wrong,” Hart wrote. “I should be at least No. 88.”

Hart’s comment was specifically about his own No. 89 placement, not Brunson’s No. 6 position. Still, it adds another Knicks reaction to the wider discussion surrounding ESPN’s latest rankings.

For Brunson, the disagreement comes down to two different assessments of his 2026-27 outlook. ESPN’s seven-person panel has him sixth, while the analytics review places him around No. 25.

The regular season will provide the next measure of where Brunson belongs in that conversation.