How Jalen Brunson rejected flopping and became unstoppable

In the field of Flopalytics, most contemporary research has focused on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. That has left a hole in our understanding of Jalen Brunson, currently spearheading the New York Knicks’ improbable run to an NBA Championship. So is Brunson a flopper? I certainly used to think so, but this question cannot be answered with a single prong. 

We will need two prongs: one “statistical” and one vibe-based, and at the end of it all I think we can call Brunson reformed, no longer a flopper and worthy of the great honorific of the modern NBA: Brunson is an ethical hooper.

Brunson's new offensive approach may explain fewer flops

First, the simplest possible evidence: Brunson is shooting almost two fewer free throws per game as opposed to last year’s playoffs. That doesn’t just mean “he’s flopping less,” but it is representative of Brunson’s fundamentally different offensive approach under new head coach Mike Brown as opposed to Tom Thibodeau — and that doesn’t just mean fewer minutes. Brunson’s usage is only barely lower than last year, and his minutes down from about 37 to 36 per game. That’s not enough to explain his fewer free throws, but it suggests a strategic change rather than significantly lower volume.

Interestingly, for two playoffs before this, Brunson’s usage and shot-diet dropped dramatically — we’re talking five fewer shots per game — but with a smaller overall dropoff in free throw attempts. All this means there is an on-court change in Brunson’s offensive approach that is less free throw-reliant; and while we can debate the X’s and O’s forever, there is some irrefutable shot tendency data we have to point to: Brunson is scoring way more off assists.

I’m not talking about a minor uptick of five percent. I’m talking almost double, going from 11 percent of 2-pointers off assists to 21 percent and from 42 percent of 3-pointers off assists to 64 percent (!). That’s a massive shift, reflecting how Brunson is relying more on his teammates to create shots for him rather than having to pull them out of thin air. Because when he has to do that, he inherently hunts for more fouls. There’s a reason the highest free throws per game players ever are all the most heliocentric: Luka Dončić, Joel Embiid, James Harden. Brunson is not playing like them anymore.

A bit of counterevidence before we engage with the vibes argument: Yahoo’s Tom Haberstroh put together the first thing we could call “flop tracking data” by charting how much five scorers fell down on shots. Brunson was third among the five players he charted, falling over on about nine percent of all shots, fouled or unfouled.

The point of that data was to determine how much more Gilgeous-Alexander fell than his peers, but this data doesn’t actually tell us much about Brunson. He was similar to Donovan Mitchell and James Harden in all categories, and it’s also not even true that a fall is necessarily a flop. Nor is the data systematic; we only have numbers for five guys in one single playoffs. I can’t say this proves Brunson flops less more than anyone can say it means he flops more.

Simply watching Brunson play suggests he's left flopping behind

I think the best evidence for the reformed, anti-flopping Brunson, though, is visual. We’ve all seen a lot of Knicks games, and I think it’s demonstrably true that Brunson has been foul hunting less in these playoffs relative to other points in his career. That is probably due to Mike Brown’s new offensive system in which he can score off more assists, but also because he has developed his inside scoring skills to no longer rely on free throws. He’s so crafty in the paint, even with Victor Wembanyama lurking, with little step-throughs, turnarounds and moving off ball to get free. There’s just more to it now than peak James Harden “dribble dribble dribble hard-step throw-your-arms-up (whistle)” offense.

It’s hard to discuss flopping empirically because a “flop” does not have a statistical definition like a block or a rebound or data-defined like a “barrel” in baseball, a specific combo of exit velocity and launch angle. It’s one of those “you know it when you see it” things, which forces us to eye-test our way to talking about it. My eyes are telling me Brunson is flopping far less.

And my heart tells me that Brunson understands that flopping is lame, and in his Joe Cool, King of New York persona, flopping has no place in the legend of Jalen Brunson, a legend that will be sung for generations if he actually wins the Knicks their first ring in over 50 years. That’s total speculation, but the vibes nonetheless support it. Like I said, we can’t do this with just one prong. 

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