A Tale of Two Cities

The New York Knicks led by NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson, defeated the San Antonio Spurs in 5 games to win the NBA Championship on Saturday. It was the Knicks first championship in 53 years and the city of New York’s first championship since the Giants won the Super Bowl in 2011. Everyone related to New York City in some way, has reveled in this victory. Spike Lee, Donald Trump, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Taylor Swift, Timothee Chalamet have shown themselves to be avid Knicks fans. The new socialist mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, has attempted to ride the wave of the Knick’s historic victory to bolster his political standing in the city. Some of Mamdani’s supporters tried to give him credit for the Knicks victory. “This is your city on socialism,” the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America wrote on X. “Welcome to Mamdanistan,” wrote City Councilwoman Shahana Hanif. “This never would have happened if Cuomo was mayor,” wrote Zara Rahim, the mayor’s campaign adviser.

Thos statements are comical because Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks represent the complete opposite of the values that inform Zohran Mamdani’s politics. Brunson was an undersized underdog overachiever coming out of college. They said he was too small, too slow, not athletic enough. He was a second-round draft pick, passed over by every NBA team. The Dallas Mavericks gave up on him. But he has used elite work ethic and elite competitiveness to raise himself above his physical limitations to become one of the best basketball players in the NBA – an NBA champion and a Finals MVP. He took it upon himself to overcome everything that worked against him in order to achieve his dreams. He didn’t expect that someone else would do it for him. He didn’t wait around for other people to do the hard work that he needed to do. The rest of the Knicks team followed Brunson’s lead. They were the first team in NBA history to be down by double digits in every game, and still win the series. There was no quit in that team. They never gave up even when the scoreboard told them to.

The NBA and all of professional sports, are the truest form of meritocracy. You either produce or you don’t. Your shots either go in or they don’t. There is no welfare in the NBA. There is no redistribution of wealth or success in the NBA. A player’s success is dependent on the player’s God-given ability plus their work ethic plus their competitiveness plus their personal grit. In game 4 of the final series, the Knicks were down by 29 points in the third quarter and came all the way back to win the game in the last seconds by 1 point. In that game, at his team’s lowest point, Jalen Brunson never blinked. He didn’t look for someone to blame; he didn’t point fingers at his teammates or the refs or some conspiracy theory as to why they were losing by so much. He merely played and played with a steely eyed focus. He could have quit. He could have allowed the game to be a blowout loss, and saved his energy for game 5. But that is not how he is built. He competed at the highest level even in the most dire circumstances because that’s is what greatest does. There is no entitlement. He does not expect success to be handed to him; he went out and earned it. He competed at the highest level regardless of the circumstances. He was at his best when things were the worst.

Imagine if everyone who lives in New York City or anywhere, took the same approach to their life that Brunson takes to his basketball career. Don’t expect anyone to give anything to you. Work at the highest level regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the expected outcome. Earn everything. Compete for everything. Work harder than everyone else. Stop complaining. Stop pointing fingers. Stop blaming others for your failures. Place 100% accountability on yourself. Do you think there would be a need for welfare? Do you think there would be a need for redistribution of wealth? Do you think we would have the poverty problem, the crime problem, the homeless problem that are suffocating cities like New York and the rest of the country? Imagine if everyone approached their lives like Jalen Brunson approaches his career. He does not look like LeBron James. He is not 6’ 8”, 250 pounds with a 44-inch vertical leap. Brunson is below average physically for the NBA. He was not destined for NBA greatness, but he is here, not because of what he was given, but because of what he earned. He never said it was unfair that others were given more ability than he was given. He never wallowed in self-pity or self-righteous envy. He just went to work.

Mamdani preaches the exact opposite of what we witnessed in the NBA finals this year. He is a socialist who has written extensively against the concept of meritocracy, believing that it only serves to mask underlying systemic inequities and justifies unequal power dynamics. Winston Churchill once said, “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Everything that Mamdani preaches strips the inherent Jalen Brunson out of people. His socialist message tells people not to take accountability and responsibility in your life, nothing is earned, wealth is stolen, success is pre-determined, blame others for your failures, look to the government for the things that you should do for yourself. If you make a mistake or fail, it is someone else’s fault. If the New York Knicks were run on socialists values, they would have finished in last place, and if Jalen Brunson embraced those same values in his life, he would be wallowing on welfare. Socialism gives people an excuse to fail, an excuse not to live up to their abilities. To Jalen Brunson and the Knicks, failure was never an option, even when they were down by 29 points, and that’s is why they were victorious.

Jalen Brunson showed the world how to approach life. There is only one way to play, the right way. Play hard, compete, do the right things. Don’t let your circumstances dictate your effort and your actions. All he has done his entire career, and all the Knicks did the entire series was overcome near impossible circumstances to come out victorious. New York City and the rest of the United States should be embracing the message of success from Jalen Brunson and the Knicks, and not the messages of failure from people like Mamdani.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.