Jalen Brunson Toon

Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks

Jalen Brunson didn’t save the Knicks by accident. He willed it. Game after game, fourth quarter after fourth quarter, in a city that has been waiting for this for longer than most of its fans care to admit. When the best player the Knicks have had in a generation is putting the team on his back every other night, you draw him.

This Brunson Burner cartoon captures him in full attack mode, eyes glowing, hair flying, the ball in his hand and fire trailing behind him like he’s running on something other than hardwood. That’s the thing about Brunson as a subject. The intensity isn’t a moment. It’s a setting he lives in. The guy plays with a kind of focused fury that reads immediately, and a cartoon either finds that or it misses the whole point.

The illustration is done in a bold, graphic style with clean lines and the Knicks blue and orange exactly where they belong. Number 11 at the Garden. It’s the kind of image that belongs on a wall in any apartment from the Bronx to Bay Ridge.

Brunson is one of those players who makes sense as art. He’s not the biggest guy on the floor and he doesn’t care even slightly. The step-backs, the floaters, the late-clock buckets that make you forget every bad Knicks team you’ve ever survived. That translates. A good cartoon finds what makes someone immediately recognizable and leans into it hard, and with Brunson there’s a lot to work with. Start with the eyes. The man plays like he has a personal grievance against the other team’s entire organization.

This is part of an ongoing series of New York sports cartoons and illustrations. The Mets get their share of attention here, and so do the Islanders, but the Knicks have earned it. Brunson made sure of that.

If you’re a Knicks fan, a basketball art collector, or someone who just appreciates a player who consistently makes you forget it’s only the second quarter, this one’s for you.