This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here.
It’s the summer of 2011. Blake Drazner is about to go to eighth-grade football practice on a brutally hot Chicago day when he notices one of his classmates walking down the block with a backpack on and a basketball in his hands.
He thinks to himself: Why is Jalen walking with a backpack in this heat? Maybe he’s going to a friend’s house.
Then the same thing happens the next day: backpack, basketball, heat.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
And even on the days when it rains.
It becomes a running joke in the Drazner family: Guess who I saw walking today?
One day, Drazner asks Brunson what he’s doing and where he’s going, and Brunson tells him: Walking to the gym, working out, then walking home.
Years later, Drazner looks up the distance: three miles there, three miles back, a workout sandwiched in between.
“It’s a mentality,” Drazner says. “And he’s always had it.”
It’s the summer of freshman year. Brunson is playing in Stevenson High School’s summer league, with three or four games in a day, usually lasting until 9 or 10 at night.
After the final game, Brunson and his best friend, Connor Cashaw, pack their stuff and get in the car. They don’t have to say anything. It’s just understood what they’re going to do.
Brunson tells Cashaw they have three buckets — academics, working out to get better and being social — but realistically he says they can only pick two. For Brunson, the choice doesn’t feel like much of a choice: academics and working out. It’s just part of him.
Twenty minutes later, they’re in the gym at the Berto Center, the practice center for the Chicago Bulls. It’s one of the perks of having a dad on the coaching staff: You get to use the team’s facility.
It’s clear in those late-night workouts that Brunson thinks differently than other kids his age: How can I get better? How can I take the next step? How can I prepare for when I’m on varsity?
“That was the mindset,” Cashaw says. “One step at a time, one shot at a time.”
It’s his senior year of high school. Brunson is a five-star recruit.
Kansas, Villanova, Illinois — they all want him.
His coach, Pat Ambrose, starts hearing about Brunson’s Friday nights after games. The rumors reach him via calls and texts.
Did you hear Jalen was over there at 11 o’clock?
I was at the gym the other night. Did you know Jalen was over there?
So Ambrose talks to Brunson. He wants to make sure his star player isn’t worn out. How many teenagers can handle a midnight workout after a game?
Brunson assures him he can. Ambrose can’t argue. Every day in practice, he sees the same energy, the same intensity, the same desire, the same mentality.
Brunson knows the cost, the sacrifice. He tells the Chicago Tribune that year: “I missed a lot of things socially, I missed a lot of things with my friends. … (But) it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like something I love doing, the way some people collect cards or action figures.”
Those late nights are why Ambrose tells people now: “Jalen didn’t take the elevator. He took the stairs.”
It’s his freshman year of college. The days are packed.
Every morning, Villanova’s players spend an hour working on individual technique. Every afternoon, they practice as a team for 2 1/2 hours.
And every night after team dinner and schoolwork, Brunson and his dad return to the gym at 10 p.m.
Jay Wright starts to get nervous. The Villanova coach worries that Brunson is fatiguing, mentally and physically, so he meets with Rick Brunson and his son.
The night workouts have to stop, Wright tells them, or he’ll ban Jalen from the morning session. Two workouts in a day are enough.
Rick makes his case, but ultimately, he understands, and the night workouts stop.
But the following season and the one after that? Jalen and his dad are back in the gym at night. They don’t say anything to Wright, and he doesn’t say anything to them.
By then he’s learned that Brunson can handle it.
Jalen Brunson and the “underdog effect”
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It’s the summer after his junior year at Villanova and the night before the NBA Draft. Brunson knows his name will be called; he just doesn’t know when.
He has people over to hang in New Jersey. It’s supposed to be a party, or at least a celebration.
But around 10 p.m., he turns to his friends: Let’s go get some shots up.
So that’s what he does the night before the Dallas Mavericks draft him with the 33rd pick in the second round.
It’s the summer after he’s been in the NBA. He comes back to Villanova for a camp.
While everyone else is at lunch, Brunson heads to the court. Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree watches from one of the windows overlooking the gym.
He doesn’t want to disturb Brunson; he just watches while he eats.
Everything about the workout appears intentional. Brunson comes off the pick-and-roll and pulls up for a 3-pointer, a hand in his face. He attacks the lane and pulls up for a midrange jumper. He stops, spins and fades away.
Every move, every shot, every drill seems to have a purpose, an intention. Cosby-Roundtree thinks back on those workouts much later: They’re the same shots he sees Brunson hit in high-profile NBA games.
Another NBA season begins. George Galanopoulos is an assistant video coordinator for the Dallas Mavericks. The texts come sometime during the day.
Jalen at 6:30.
Jalen at 6:00.
Jalen at 5:30.
Galanopoulos knows what they mean: Brunson will be there that night for another workout.
Brunson listens to Michael Jackson in the gym. Galanopoulos often rebounds. He watches Brunson work with assistant coach Peter Patton, and sees how he takes feedback, then applies it in real time.
Up close, that’s what impresses Galanopoulos: the intention behind every workout. Every rep. It’s not the volume of time a player puts in. It’s the quality of it. The mindset behind the activity.
Brunson has started to show he’s better than an average second-round pick. On some level, it confirms what Galanopoulos believes deeply as a coach: Players can do it — anyone can do it. They can maximize every ounce of talent if they have the right mentality.
It’s the 2023-24 NBA season. Ryan Arcidiacono is a member of the New York Knicks.
He spends a good amount of time around the team’s video coordinators. They’re the behind-the-scenes guys, the grinders. They work hard and long hours.
Sometimes Arcidiacono goes to lunch with them, other times they grab a bite in the evening.
Often they tell him: We know Jalen’s going to come back, and we’ve got to make sure someone’s here to rebound for him.
Arcidiacono isn’t surprised. He has known Brunson since he was a freshman at Villanova. He was a worker then. He’s still a worker now.
“That’s what makes greats tick differently,” he says. “Their mentality and their approach to the day to day is just different.”
It’s a summer night in San Antonio. Brunson is on the court, a microphone in his face. He curls his lip and shakes his head. His eyes water.
“I’ve got no words,” he says, and puts his hand over his mouth.
He’s just scored 45 points in the decisive game that won the Knicks their first title in 53 years. Now he’s trying to process it all on live TV.
“It’s everything I ever dreamed of,” he says.
The Knicks fans in the crowd are going crazy behind him. His teammates start to gather on the trophy stage.
ESPN’s Lisa Salters asks: “What were you saying to yourself about finishing this tonight?”
He pauses for a moment or two as if trying to soak in the question.
“My confidence comes from my work ethic,” he finally says. “Every time I got the ball, all I kept thinking about is all the hours in the summer, for every summer I had since I ever could remember. Making this a reality.”
All those summer workouts, all those long nights in high school and at Villanova, all those evening sessions with the Mavericks and then the Knicks, led him to this moment: the MVP of the 2026 NBA Finals, the giant of New York, an NBA champion.
Even in the heat of the celebration he understands that. Whenever he had the ball, he says on the court, he just thought about five words, the story of his basketball life: “me, alone, in the gym.”
