{"id":357973,"date":"2026-09-27T04:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T04:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357973\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T04:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T04:44:09","slug":"jalen-brunson-brings-knicks-starting-5-to-snl-season-52-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357973\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson Brings Knicks Starting 5 to ‘SNL’ Season 52 Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSaturday Night Live<\/a> is kicking off its 52nd season<\/a> with NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson<\/a> as its first host, and he had his starting lineup there to support him. <\/p>\n

\n\tBrunson began his monologue by joking that his time winning the 2026 NBA championship this year with the New York Knicks<\/a> may mirror his hosting stint.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTonight I\u2019m gonna approach hosting in the same way I approach the Knicks finals game; so the first three quarters of the show are gonna be god awful. The last sketch is gonna be amazing,\u201d he said. \u201cThis summer, I helped the Knicks win the NBA championship. By now, you\u2019ve all heard me talk about it, but you haven\u2019t heard me sing about it\u2026 And obviously I\u2019m not going to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also joked about being back in Madison Square Garden for the NBA season that\u2019s about to start, where Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married<\/a> this summer.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe new season is just a couple of weeks away, and I gotta say, it\u2019s gonna be pretty cool to be back at Madison Square Garden. Looking around like, wow, just a few months ago, this was the exact spot where Taylor and Travis got married,\u201d he said. Brunson<\/p>\n

\n\tThe New York Knicks won the NBA championship in June, marking their first win since 1973. Brunson was awarded with the title of NBA Finals MVP after the dynamic season. To support his debut as an SNL<\/a> host, the Knicks\u2019 starting five, Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges, were all in attendance.<\/p>\n

\n\tBrunson said he was going to take questions from the audience, to which the camera panned over to make way for his teammates. Towns kicked off a round of questions, asking, \u201cCan you foul out of SNL?\u201d Brunson responded, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI could be here, like, the whole show?\u201d Towns added. Hart candidly asked the SNL host, \u201cIs it true that you took a $113 million pay cut just to resign with the Knicks?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBrunson said, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s pretty true.\u201d Hart asked an additional follow-up question: \u201cWow. So is that money, like, still up for grabs?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first cold open of the new season poked fun at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump\u2019s apparent bromance. Ramy Youssef portrayed Mamdani, while James Austin Johnson returned to dish out his impersonation of Trump.<\/p>\n

\n\tMamdani was told he had a guest, to which he responded, \u201cWhat reckless lunatic would travel to see me in this kind of weather?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYour best friend!\u201d Johnson\u2019s Trump said. \u201cI missed my day one. For some reason that no one can figure out, I really, really like you.\u201d Youssef pointed out the El Ni\u00f1o in New York City, telling the faux president,
\u201cThat\u2019s very kind, but wouldn\u2019t you rather be in D.C.? We\u2019re in the middle of El Ni\u00f1o.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh, El Ni\u00f1o, we don\u2019t like big stores, especially when they\u2019re in Spanish,\u201d Trump said. He went on to talk about his \u201ccrazy week\u201d: \u201cI kicked out the press and hung out with the president of China, Xi. And yeah, I went brunette. It\u2019s fall!\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere was this crazy AI stuff, too,\u201d he continued. \u201cI just had dinner with Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, and it made me think, wow, RFK Jr.\u2019s probably right about those vaccines. I mean, the tis in that room.\u201d Ashley Padilla also popped up briefly in the cold open as Natalie Harp, executive assistant to President Trump.<\/p>\n

\n\tToward the end of the cold open, Youssef\u2019s Mamdani kept on insisting that he needed to get back to work. \u201cPlease let me stay here with you,\u201d Johnson\u2019s Trump said. \u201cOK, only if you give us $21 billion for a housing project in Queens,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAre you out of your mind?\u201d Trump said, to which Mamdani offered, \u201cWhat if I follow you back on Instagram?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a done deal,\u201d Johnson\u2019s Trump concluded.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe New York Knicks star and Katseye<\/a> were the first host and musical guest pair<\/a> of the new season, also notably making their SNL debuts. Next week, Dakota Johnson will host with Turnstile as the musical act.<\/p>\n

\n\tShane Gillis will host on Oct. 10 with musical guest Rosalia, while Obsession star Inde Navarrette makes her SNL hosting debut on the special Halloween episode. She\u2019ll be joined by Gracie Abrams. <\/p>\n

\n\tMore to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday Night Live is kicking off its 52nd season with NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson as its first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4777,29844,9,11,1104,10,2039,2040],"class_list":["post-357973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-katseye","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-new-york-news","tag-saturday-night-live","tag-snl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}