Knicks Legend Patrick Ewing Always Saw 'Something Positive, Great' in Jalen Brunson

Jalen Brunson has accomplished plenty in his basketball career over the past two seasons. But, as a youth, Brunson was able to do what few in the unforgivable environment of the 1990s NBA were able to accomplish: annoy Patrick Ewing.

The New York Knicks legend returned to Madison Square Garden on Saturday to take in his longtime NBA employers' 105-93 victory over the Brooklyn Nets. Saturday's triumph clinched the Knicks' first pair of consecutive winning seasons since some of Ewing's final days with the organization, as New York is 42-28 and has a chance at third place in the Eastern Conference on Monday night when they face the Detroit Pistons (7:30 p.m. ET, MSG).

From his courtside seat, Ewing took in the antics of Jalen Brunson, the Knicks' undisputed current headliner. This time, there was nothing Ewing could do to get Brunson out of the Knicks' vicinity, recalling that he'd often had to playfully shoo off the future point guard as an infant when he'd hang around the team with his father Rick, a New York reserve at the time and now an assistant coach with the team.

"They have a great guy in Brunson," Ewing said of the modern Knicks in an interview with MSG Network's Rebecca Haarlow during Saturday's game. "I've been knowing him since he was about two years old but he was always in my locker, he would not leave my locker. He was always by my side."

If Brunson keeps at his current pace, there's a chance he could follow Ewing into MSG's rafters when all is said and done. Brunson continues to live up to and probably exceed every expectation a $104 million contract placed upon him in the summer of 2022 and he continues to lead the team in the upper half of the Eastern Conference playoff race.

Brunson's tormenting of Ewing never fully ceased: when Ewing took on the head coaching duties at his alma mater of Georgetown University, he frequently had to deal with Brunson, who played with the rival Villanova Wildcats before his NBA entry in 2018.

"I had to coach against him for a few years at Villanova, he used to torch me," Ewing said. "I was telling his dad, if I knew I was going to get into coaching, I would've been recruiting him from (the start)!"

Despite Jalen's standing as a thorn in Patrick's side, the two families remain friends. The Hall of Famer further recalled to Haarlow that his daughters Corey and Randi showed off a photo of the two of them playing with young Jalen during a summer vacation to Ewing's native Jamaica. Ewing happily forwarded the photo to Rick, calling it "something positive, something great."

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