Time for another entry into online height discourse, courtesy of ESPN's NBA Today crew. The question we must consider is this: Is Jalen Brunson too small to be a 1A Dude? Aces coach Becky Hammon's current thesis, proffered on a panel alongside Malika Andrews, Kendrick Perkins, Chiney Ogwumike, and Brian Windhorst on Thursday, is that Brunson is indeed too shrimpy to be a Dude of the 1A variety. She spoke from the standpoint of a fellow short hooper, noting that Steph Curry is the only notably tiny guy to lead his team to a championship, which flustered the eminently flusterable Perkins and briefly led to some chatter about little fellers doing stuff on the basketball court.
Generating clips and discourse is, broadly speaking, the job of an ESPN panel show, and as such it takes a real humdinger of a take—e.g. "The word out on Zion Williamson is that 'he'll eat the table.' I'm quoting."—to achieve true escape velocity. Neither Hammon's contention nor Perkins's stammered rebuttal warrant much consideration, but Hammon juiced a little extra out of this soundbite by later releasing an Official Statement On The Matter, which you can really tell she wrote herself. She clarified, alongside a blurry photo of herself coaching, that Brunson "used to give us/Spurs WORK when he played with Dallas..!!", that she loves "when undersized players give the league BUCKETS," and that "he's a GREAT NBA player.. much respect..," but that she ultimately stands by her take. Using the form of an apology for a non-apology is great, as is the kicker. "This game favors the tall 🤷♀️😟-wish it didn't .. BUT it does #calmdown #thereareexceptionstotherule."
That clarifies things, if you can excuse Hammon's outre punctuation stylings: Brunson rules, she was right to say what she said, and there are exceptions to the rule, which the thirstiest basketball guy online thinks applies to him. Thankfully for Brunson, the playoffs are always contested during Short King Spring.
