A Victory Lap at Rockefeller Plaza, Jalen Brunson Hosts SNL
The Knicks captain opens the new season of Saturday Night Live and brings the champions with him
Saturday night, 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The man who walks out to open the 52nd season of Saturday Night Live is not an actor or a pop star. He is the point guard who just ended the Knicks' 53-year wait for a title.
Jalen Brunson led the Knicks to the NBA championship in June, beating San Antonio in five games. It was the franchise's first title since 1973, a drought older than the show he was now hosting. He was named Finals MVP after averaging 32.6 points a game in the series, according to NBC News. At the City Hall celebration in June he received the key to the city, amNY reported. On Saturday, September 26, he carried the victory party into Studio 8H.
He wore a white T-shirt under a black jacket. He did not pretend to be anything other than what he is. "It's great to be here. I'm very excited, as you guys can tell from my voice and face," he said, deadpan, as Sports Illustrated reported.
The Last Sketch Is Going to Be Amazing
The monologue had a thesis, and it was pure Brunson. He told the studio audience he would host the show the way he plays a Finals game. NBC News printed the line whole. "The first three quarters of the show are going to be god-awful," he said. "The last sketch is going to be amazing."
The joke worked because it fit the player. The AP tied it to the way he closed out games against the Spurs in June. On Saturday he turned that reputation into a joke about himself.
Then came the reckoning. Kenan Thompson, a longtime star of the show, walked out as the ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith. Brunson said he had invited Smith so he could get some closure. The Smith character apologized for doubting him when the Knicks signed him in 2022. It was a small piece of civic theater, and a lot of fans had waited a long time to hear it.
The best moment belonged to the roster. Four teammates sat in the audience, posing as fans with questions. Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, and Josh Hart each stood up in turn. Towns wanted to know whether a person can foul out of SNL. Told that nobody can, he answered, "so I can be here, like, the whole show? Nice." That exchange comes from the Associated Press, in a report carried by ABC News, which also noted that Anunoby drew a huge ovation. Hart, who played with Brunson at Villanova and now co-hosts a podcast with him, got his own shot in. Then Brunson waved all four up to the stage, and Gold Derby described the applause as rapturous.
The first three quarters of the show are going to be god-awful. The last sketch is going to be amazing.
A Short List of Hosts
Brunson is only the fifth NBA player to host the show. Bill Russell did it in 1979. Michael Jordan hosted in 1991. Charles Barkley has hosted four times, once while still active. LeBron James hosted in 2007, and until Saturday he was the last active NBA player to take the job. The AP also pointed out that Brunson, Jordan, Barkley, and James all hosted season premieres. The first show of the fall sets the tone for a year.
The sketches leaned on what he does for a living, and on how little he gives away on his face. In one, he plays Darius, an office worker who cannot sink a fast food wrapper into a wastebasket and keeps adding time to an imaginary clock until he does. In a pretaped parody of High School Musical, he is the new kid at North High who blocks every shot the singing team captain takes, played by Jeremy Culhane, and then wins over the captain's crush with a love song of his own. Veronika Slowikowska plays the girl who switches sides.
He was a Shark Tank investor in an enormous top hat. He was a businessman on a long layover next to Mikey Day, sinking into an airport massage chair a little too happily. Sports Illustrated reported that this was the closest he came to breaking. In the closing sketch he played himself, cornered by a pair of scammers claiming to be people from his past.
A Room That Loves a Winner
The reviews were mixed, and fairly so. The Guardian called him a stiff host but added that he was by no means terrible, and placed him somewhere in the middle of the athletes who have taken the job in recent seasons. The AV Club described the night as a laid-back and belated victory lap. Neither review is wrong. Brunson is not a natural sketch performer. He is a natural closer, and the show was built around that.
What the premiere captured was not comedy so much as a mood. New York has not had a basketball season like this one in half a century. For one night, the show mostly stepped aside and let the city celebrate.
Brunson is not a natural sketch performer. He is a natural closer, and the show was built around that.
It was also a night for the show's own new faces. NBC News noted that the season introduced two featured players, Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter. The Guardian singled out Reiter's first appearance, in a sketch spoofing a girl group competition, as drawing a loud round of applause. The musical guest was Katseye, who performed "Animal" and "Hootie Frutti."
The next stop is familiar ground. The Knicks receive their championship rings and raise their banner at Madison Square Garden on October 20, the season opener against Philadelphia, as ABC7 New York and Sports Illustrated have reported. It is the same arena where Harry Styles played a home stand in sequins, and ring night should be every bit as loud.
SNL moves on too. Dakota Johnson hosts next, on October 3, with Turnstile as the musical guest, according to NBC's own announcement. But for one Saturday in late September, the stage at Rockefeller Plaza belonged to the captain of the Knicks. He told the crowd exactly how the night would go. Then he spent the rest of the show making sure nobody left early.
