LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon acknowledged Tuesday that New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson has put himself in a unique class of players, but didn’t back off her general stance that small guards generally don’t lead teams to NBA championships.<\/p>\n
Brunson, listed at 6-foot-2, just did that in earning NBA Finals MVP after guiding the Knicks to a five-game victory over the San Antonio Spurs. He scored 45 points in the title-clinching game on June 13.<\/p>\n
Hammon made her original comments on ESPN in December 2023, saying Brunson wasn’t a \u201c1A dude.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was asked about her remarks at Tuesday’s Aces shootaround leading up to that night’s home game against the New York Liberty. The Aces have won three of the past four WNBA championships, and the Liberty won two years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cJalen, all he did was prove history wrong,” Hammon said. “He proves he\u2019s an outlier, so you can put his name next to Steph Curry and Isiah Thomas. I thought he played brilliantly, especially down the stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, he was that 1A dude. But apologize? I\u2019m never going to apologize for having an opinion. That\u2019s what ESPN pays me for.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the second time in recent weeks she defended her original comments. Hammon also was asked her opinion after Brunson was named Eastern Conference final MVP when the Knicks swept the Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Jalen Brunson\u2019s a hell of a player, a hell of a player,\u201d Hammon said on May 26. “I\u2019m speaking historically on the NBA with what I said. I don\u2019t know why everybody\u2019s so stuck on that. I said it two years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said what I said. If he proves me wrong, he proves me wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon acknowledged Tuesday that New York Knicks star Jalen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[124080,124079,61368,31021,202,196,84494,198,199,942,82,84,83,27435],"class_list":["post-347748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-becky-hammon","tag-brunson-hammon-knicks-ace-nba-finals-spurs","tag-isiah-thomas","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40798-ap-nevada-sports-only","tag-product-40802-ap-new-york-city-sports-only","tag-product-40803-ap-new-york-state-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-steph-curry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}