For the first years of his NBA career, Jalen Brunson operated in the shadows.
A point guard deemed too slow and too small mostly came off the bench for his first three seasons with the Mavericks, improving but on the margins.
Dallas featured Luka Doncic, who was in Brunson’s draft class but otherwise in another league.
Doncic was Rookie of the Year in 2018-19 and All-NBA First Team the next three seasons, a scoring virtuoso virtually as soon as he stepped on the court.
Brunson’s true leap as a player did not arrive until 2021-22, when he emerged as a Mavericks starter, a scoring threat (16.3 point per game), received votes for the Most Improved Player Award and became an able sidekick of Doncic’s for a team that advanced to the Western Conference Finals.
Knicks fans know what happened next.
A leap to New York and a second leap of his game brought Brunson into another level of the league’s hierarchy — one that is being solidified this weekend.
In his sixth season and second with the Knicks, Brunson is an All-Star for the first time.
He has graduated into the best player on a quality team, a role that seemed unfathomable to most outsiders ever since Brunson was drafted in the second round out of Villanova.
Brunson himself, though, said he knew he could be this kind of star if given the chance.
“Since I was a kid, I’ve always had the mindset of working to be the best player I can be at all facets of my game, but understanding the role I’m in is more important,” Brunson told reporters in Indianapolis on Saturday, before participating in that night’s 3-Point Contest. “So obviously you work on things and you put it in your back pocket to wait until you actually need to use it. But I think growing up and learning … what role I’m in to help the team win is most important.
“I’ve always known if I had an opportunity, I’d be able to do my best at it. Not saying I knew I’d be here [at All-Star Weekend], but I knew I’d be able to do something one day.”
The Knicks, too, believed.
Brunson, whose four-year, $104 million pact seemed large until it seemed like a steal, will be the only team representative at Sunday’s All-Star Game (because of the injury to Julius Randle).
In a career that might be best defined by improvement, Brunson has yet again stepped up his game this season.
The 27-year-old is averaging a career-best 27.6 points on 48.3 percent shooting from the field while hitting 41.1 percent from deep, to go along with 6.5 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game.
He has done everything for a team that has needed him to do everything: Brunson is eighth in the NBA in minutes played, fourth in points scored, 13th in assists.
The Knicks’ point-guard curse is over.
“To see the city, how it’s reacted and how they’ve embraced me,” Brunson said, “it’s unbelievable.”
As the son of Rick Brunson — now a Knicks assistant and formerly a Knicks point guard — Jalen understands what the city is like when the Knicks are good.
For the first time in decades, there is legitimate title hope around the Knicks, who enter the break severely banged up but in fourth in the Eastern Conference.
Brunson said the best part of his starry weekend was the fact he could share it with his family and called it a “full-circle” moment.
“I remember being around the league as a kid, and I always dreamed of having opportunities like this,” Brunson said, “and here I am.”
Brunson credited his family and his coach — calling Tom Thibodeau a gym rat who’s at the court when he shoots in the morning and remains there when Brunson returns at night — for helping him achieve a dream that has made him one of the most unlikely All-Stars.
“I think [being an underdog is] part of the mantra, [drafted in] the second round,” Brunson said. “You’ve kind of been overlooked at some point in any way, shape or form. Being able to do whatever you have to do to get to that next level … it’s a mindset thing.
“I was blessed to be raised by parents who put that mindset in me.”
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