The "Unethical Scoring" of Jalen Brunson

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Earlier this season, as the Cleveland Cavaliers started with an impressive 33-4 record, center Jarrett Allen was asked about the teams’ brand of basketball. Allen called it “farm-raised, non-GMO, organic, free-range, ethical basketball.” The term ‘ethical basketball’ has emerged in the social NBA lexicon since then to celebrate team play while also degrading heliocentric styles of play.

In the series between the Knicks and the Pistons, more specifically the matchup between Cade Cunningham and Jalen Brunson, the term has come up again. This time it is to devalue the way that Brunson gets his points as cheap and frustrating versus a more palatable version of offense from Cunningham.

The loudest proponents of this have predictably been Pistons, fans but some Knicks fans have begun to bemoan Brunson’s heliocentricity when it comes to playoff basketball. It calls to question whether there is a right and wrong way to score points, and if the Knicks can have success with the style of play Brunson employs.

The Definition of Unethical

The arguable forefather of unethical heliocentric basketball in the modern era is James Harden. During his peak with the Houston Rockets that led to two Western Conference Finals appearances, Harden was a manipulator of the rules, a master at getting defenders in bad positions to draw fouls. To understand this proficiency, he led the league in free throw attempts per game for six consecutive seasons, and is 7^th all time in career free throw attempts.

The all-time leaders in that category include players like Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, and Wilt Chamberlain. Those players don’t have the reputation of being foul hunters, and yet Harden does. So, why is that unethical? The loose definition, depending on who you ask, is an order of operations stance more than anything.

When a player is physical and absorbs contact on the way to the basket, this can be considered ethical. However, when a player sees a defender in a compromised position, the unethical will create contact with the sole intent of getting to the free throw line. In some ways, it’s a purity argument, where taking a shot over drawing contact is valued.

Ethics in offensive basketball is thus an exercise in intent. Because there is no arguing the raw efficiency of an “unethical” style of play as it leads to a lot of pointsas is evidenced by Harden’s three scoring titles in Houston and Jalen Brunson’s scoring output in the first two games of the Knicks first round series, what is maligned is the focus of getting to the free throw line before scoring in a traditional way.

The Brunson and Cunningham Divide

The term “crafty” is often used to describe Jalen Brunson’s style of play. Most of the time, this is more of an insult than a compliment. It is along the same lines of calling a quarterback “sneakily athletic” when they scramble for an unexpected 15-yard gain. Brunson is on the shorter end of the spectrum in today’s NBA and lacks elite athleticism. So “crafty” often means that he is good on offense despite factors that should hold him back.

Brunson is a very skilled player, but he is also intelligent, knowing how to get to his spots efficiently and create the looks that he desires. That intelligence manifests itself in a variety of ways. Perhaps the least appealing of those is to aggressively seek contact to get to the foul line. This is an intelligent decision from a numbers and probability standpoint for someone that is an 82% free throw shooter like Brunson is. That tendency has been on full display during the Pistons series through two games.

The bulk of these moments during this series have come against Ausar Thompson, who is the profile antithesis of Brunson. Thompson is inexperienced, insanely athletic, and very long. When he has been deployed on Brunson (which has been often), the Knicks point guard has leaned into Thompson’s body to create contact and get foul calls. Much of these tactics have worked, as Thompson fouled out of Game 2 and was called for five fouls in Game 1.

Conversely, Brunson’s counterpart, Cade Cunningham, has averaged 8.5 free throw attempts per game in this series. The way he gets to the line has been going downhill and absorbing contact. In essence, it is the ethical argument versus the unethical one. The perception has become that Cunningham attempts to score first through contact, while Brunson uses contact to score at the foul line.

Let’s use Harden as the baseline standard for drawing fouls when it comes to both players. During his Houston years, Harden was fouled on between 16.4-21.7% of his shots. He was fouled on the floor (non-shooting foul) between 2.1-3.2% of his team’s plays. Between playoffs and regular season, Brunson has topped out at a 13.7% shooting foul rate and 4.2% foul-on-the-floor rate (so far in this series, this number is at a very high 7.0%). Cunningham by comparison, is at a 10.5% shooting foul rate and a 1.9% foul-on-the-floor rate (up to 3.8% this series).

These numbers validate the story that Brunson has sought fouls on the floor and in the act of shooting. They also validate the frustrations that some fans have had that Brunson flops too much. The counter to that argument is that Brunson feels a need for these theatrics because he is getting hit on every offensive trip. What happened in this series, especially in Game 2, was that Brunson allowed the lack of calls to get to him, and it impacted his decision making. Simply put, Brunson is too talented to allow that to happen.

Ripple Effects

To his credit, Brunson took ownership over the team’s loss in Game 2. The Knicks played in a manner that was not conducive to winning. The glaring issue when it comes to Brunson specifically is that, on some level, he should be too good to have to resort to a heavy helping of contact manipulation to score points.

Brunson is one of the better shooters in the league, ranking in the 80^th percentile in effective field goal percentage, two-point shooting percentage, and three-point shooting percentage in the NBA. He has a very quick first step and a crisp handle that allows him to get by most defenders.

When his emphasis switches from scoring to drawing contact, much of what the Knicks want to accomplish is minimized. We saw in Game 2 how this impacted the rest of the team.

Karl-Anthony Towns was invisible for much of the second half, while Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby could never seem to get in the flow of the offense. Much of this could be attributed to Brunson’s 42.5% usage rate in the game and a muddled offensive process that resulted.

The irony of it all is that the Knicks should not need to play this way. The entire point of their roster construction this season is that there are multiple players that can take over a game, a multitude of options that should make a Brunson-exclusive offense unnecessary. Both Towns and Bridges in their other stops showed an ability to handle larger offensive loads, and yet it seems that they are not tasked to do that here even with small degrees of regularity.

The top five players in usage rate in NBA history are Russell Westbrook (2015 & 2017), James Harden (2019), Giannis Antetokounmpo (2023), and Kobe Bryant (2006). None of those teams ever made it past the second round. There is a precedent that heliocentricity to an extreme degree is not championship basketball, even it does win games during the regular season.

Because of his leadership traits, Brunson has taken the brunt of responsibility for the way the offense has looked at times in this series. The reality is that this isn’t last year’s playoff run where injuries necessitated a Brunson takeover.

The only way this team can be successful is with further integration of these other pieces. That will require a more “ethical” approach by Brunson, to not only win this series but to find sustained success throughout this championship window. As always, the fate of this franchise falls into the hands and decision-making ability of their captain.

ICYMI