Jalen Brunson has won the NBA’s 2024-25 Clutch Player of the Year, the league announced Wednesday. Brunson joins De’Aaron Fox and Stephen Curry as the only winners of the award in its relatively brief history. He is the first New York Knick to take home a major individual trophy since his former teammate, Julius Randle, was named the Most Improved Player after the 2020-21 season.
Brunson got 70 first-place votes out of 100. Nikola Jokić came in second with 26 first-place votes and Anthony Edwards came in third with two first-place votes. Only two other players got first-place votes: Steph Curry and LeBron James.
Brunson’s late-game heroics kept the Knicks in the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference almost singlehandedly. He scored 156 total points in clutch situations this season, second-most in the league behind Anthony Edwards at 157. The key difference was volume. Edwards played 42 clutch games. Brunson played 28, but he shot 51.5% in the clutch in those games, allowing him to rack up points much faster than Edwards did. Notably, Brunson is the first Clutch Player of the Year winner not to lead the NBA in total clutch points in their winning season, as Fox and Curry both did so.
The Knicks ultimately went 19-12 in the clutch, and 17-11 in Brunson’s clutch games. The Knicks have now gone above .500 in all three of Brunson’s seasons in New York, but that didn’t mean he lacked stiff competition. The award’s runner-up was someone who has plenty of trophies on his shelf already: Jokić, the three-time MVP.
Jokić led his Denver Nuggets to a 21-16 record in the clutch. He didn’t score quite as many points in those situations as Brunson, as he finished the year with 140, but he was more efficient, posting a 56-43-72 shooting line in clutch situations. Unsurprisingly, Jokić also ranked second in clutch assists (while Brunson was third) and third in clutch rebounds.
Ultimately, though, the voters were swayed by Brunson’s shot-making. When the Knicks need a bucket late in games, Brunson’s craft and footwork almost always gets them one. Now, the award named for Jerry West gets its third consecutive winner that shares his position as a guard.
