New York Knicks point guard and captain Jalen Brunson is the latest to engage with A.I., albeit in the more traditional form, at least in a basketball sense.

Brunson’s latest sterling effort meant a little something more: a showing of 33 points in a 129-101 win on Wednesday night over the Charlotte Hornets was staged in front of one of his childhood idols in Allen Iverson, who was one of 19,588 to witness the Knicks’ latest triumph at Spectrum Center.

“I used to cut my mom’s socks and make them shooting sleeves because of Allen Iverson, for sure,” Brunson recalled to Bill Pidto of MSG Network in an interview staged shortly after the win. “He impacted my life and he’s one of the GOATs for sure.”

Brunson’s performance on Wednesday night was Iverson-esque, as he hit 14-of-28 from the field en route to a runaway victory over the hapless Hornets. Just under half of his tallies came in the third period as they established metropolitan distance in the NBA Cup group play battle.

Following that daring dozen, which perhaps killed off any hope of a Hornets comeback, Brunson earned a hug from a courtside Iverson. The 2001 NBA MVP has made his home in Charlotte for quite a while to the point he has been a celebrity row mainstay at Hornets games as they seek some sort of franchise traction with backcourt talents LaMelo Ball and Kon Knueppel in tow.

Since coming to New York in the summer of 2022, the Villanova alum Brunson has flipped the Knicks’ fortunes for the better, much like how his fellow Big East alum Iverson did when he came to the Philadelphia 76ers as the top pick of the 1996 draft out of Georgetown.

Some have noted the similarities between Brunson and Iverson, the Big East talents who have made considerable names for themselves despite common criticisms attacking their physique. Fellow Hall-of-Fame and current TNT analyst Shaquille O’Neal compared Brunson to Iverson when making a case for the former to start the 2024 All-Star Game.

He’s talked about as a small guard and him not being able to carry a team but he’s a bad motherf*****,” O’Neal said. “”He plays great ball so I wanted to give him the nod … I haven’t seen a small guy do whatever he wants to do since Iverson. So, I like Brunson.”