Long before he became a NBA champion, NBA Finals MVP, and a New York City legend, Jalen Brunson was laying the foundation for his future success on the basketball courts at Charlottesville High School and throughout the City. 

Brunson, who led the New York Knicks to their first NBA title in 53 years earlier this summer, lived in Charlottesville from 2007-09 while his father, Rick, was the director of basketball operations at the University of Virginia. During his time in Charlottesville, Brunson attended Walker Upper Elementary School and Buford Middle School. When he wasn’t in class, Brunson was usually on the basketball court. 

He did drills with his father on the outdoor courts at Charlottesville High School (you can watch them on YouTube). And even though he was only in middle school, Brunson would often go to UVA and play in pick-up basketball games against college students. 

“He never missed a workout,” said Andy Jones, who coached Brunson’s travel basketball team in Charlottesville. “And oftentimes he would leave from one of our workouts and go up to UVA and play some more up there.” 

It didn’t take long for Brunson to make a strong impression after he arrived in Charlottesville. 

“Right away, we're like, ‘Oh, man, this kid's gonna be really good,’” said Jones, who is now the Athletics and Activities Director at Charlottesville High School. “We knew that his dad was putting him in the right spots as far as extra work, and the kid worked hard. But he was always a fun kid to be around. He had a great smile, he had fun, but he also was competitive as heck.”

That competitiveness, along with his work ethic and high basketball IQ allowed Brunson to be able to compete against older players in travel ball.

“Jalen came out and started playing with us when he was in 5th grade and we had 7th graders up through juniors in high school in our program,” said Jones, who also was a teacher at Buford at the time. “And Jalen, as a 5th grader, played with our 7th graders.”

Brunson was able to thrive against the older competition despite being one of the smaller players on the court. 

“I think Jalen would tell you that he wasn't the most physically gifted player at the time,” Jones said. “But he had basketball knowledge; you could see it. Because he was so skilled and knew the game so well, he just could still navigate and do pretty well.” 

Brunson continued to work on his game throughout his three years in Charlottesville, doing workouts with his father, Jones, and Carl Brown, who was the boys basketball coach at Buford at the time. It was during that time that Brunson said he began to understand the incredible amount of hard work it was going to take to become an elite player.  

“The work ethic really started around the 7th-8th grade,” Brunson said in an interview with CN1000 Sports in Chicago. “When I was really young, I didn’t know I had to work that hard.” 

After Rick Brunson’s time at UVa came to an end in 2009, he became an assistant coach in the NBA with the Chicago Bulls and relocated his family to Illinois.  

“When Jalen first moved to Chicago, I had some family there and I told them, ‘Hey, look out for this kid. He's going to be pretty good.’” Jones said. “And sure enough, he was pretty good there.”

Pretty good indeed.

After moving away from Charlottesville, Brunson played at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, where he was a two-time Illinois Gatorade Player of the Year (2014, 2015). During his senior season, Brunson led Stevenson to its first-ever Illinois Class 4A state championship and was named Illinois Mr. Basketball and a McDonald’s All-American. 

Jones said he hoped that Brunson might return to Charlottesville after high school and play college basketball at UVa, but the 6-foot-2 guard chose to attend Villanova, where he led the Wildcats to NCAA national championships in 2016 and 2018. 

Despite his incredible success in both high school and college, Brunson was not considered a high-level NBA prospect. He was selected in the second round of the NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks, where spent his first four NBA seasons before signing with the New York Knicks as a free agent in 2022. 

Brunson’s professional career took off once he arrived in New York, culminating in his first NBA championship during the 2025-26 season. In the series-clinching game of the 2026 NBA Finals, Brunson scored 45 points and hit the go-ahead basket with just over a minute to go in the game. 

Back in Charlottesville, Jones and the people who got to know Brunson when he lived here fondly remembered all of the hard work and effort he put in to reach basketball’s mountaintop. 

“I was talking with some guys that Jalen went to school with and that he played with on that travel team,” Jones recalled, “and one of them said they asked him ‘Hey, what are you doing after school?’ And he said, ‘I have to run five miles after school today because that's part of my workout plan with my dad.’ They were like, ‘You're doing what?’ But that is the level of work ethic it takes in order to get there.”  

It’s those types of stories that Jones shares with current Charlottesville athletes that have dreams of achieving greatness. It all starts with hard work. 

“We have hundreds of kids that are walking through the hallways of Charlottesville City Schools, elementary through high school, that want to be NBA basketball players,” Jones said. “I can tell them, ‘You have got to put the work in. Here's an example.'

And Jalen is a great example.”