In his career, Isaiah Hartenstein is lucky enough to share the court with two of the NBA’s finest guards today in Jalen Brunson and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Hartenstein joined the New York Knicks in 2022 alongside Brunson and has fully witnessed the meteoric rise of the 28-year-old toward stardom. During his time in the Big Apple, the big man saw how Brunson boldly embraced the responsibility as the current face of the Knicks’ grand program.
And in his free agency entry to the Oklahoma City Thunder this season, Harternstein has been fully in awe of Gilgeous-Alexander’s brilliance since then. The MVP candidate stands as the driving force of OKC’s dominance today and in the future, and the undrafted center couldn’t be more thrilled to call Gilgeous-Alexander as his teammate and rally with him on a daily basis.
While both superstars are undisputedly special on their own, Hartenstein still thinks that there’s an existing significant difference between Brunson and Gilgeous-Alexander.
In a recent special interview with Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson, Hartenstein details the distinction between the two in terms of skill set and offensive bag.
“They both can get to the midrange but it’s different. I mean, with Brunson it was really more of me really trying to get him open and establishing the two man game a little bit and we’re playing off of each other I think a little bit; and then sometimes with Shai, sometimes it’s just better to just get out of his way and let him do his thing because he’s so skilled offensively,” he said.
“Jalen is super skilled but I think it’s different. It’s so different. They’re both great players but again, you just have to adjust to every player I feel like. It’s been going well with Shai and we have to keep doing that connection.”
While there’s a dissimilarity between Brunson and Gilgeous-Alexander, there’s still one thing that stands out for Hartenstein in discussing the possible likeness of the two: both of them prefer winning and will always prioritize team ambitions.
Both Brunson and Gilgeous-Alexander are standout leaders of their respective teams. Brunson stands as the main man of the Knicks in the past two years and in this season as the East’s top-three squad (22-10), while Gilgeous-Alexander continues to live up to his reputation as a role model within the Thunder’s superb culture and winning ways that tops the entire NBA with a 26-5 card.
“They have a lot of similarities and they’re both team-first guys; that’s the similarities,” the OKC big man noted.
At the end of the day, we can only appreciate and savor our chances of witnessing how Brunson and Gilgeous-Alexander operate as two of the current best players in the world.
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