Why Jalen Brunson wasn't chosen as the NBA2K27 cover athlete over Victor Wembanyama

On Wednesday morning, it was revealed that Spurs' center Victor Wembanyama was chosen as the next player to be the main cover athlete on the NBA2K27 video game.

Being chosen as a cover athlete is a privilege for players and is often something a player dreams of from the time they are a kid.

There was one specific player many may have thought would be the next NBA2K cover athlete; however, Wembanyama was chosen instead.

Why Jalen Brunson wasn't chosen as the NBA2K27 cover athlete

Jalen Brunson led the Knicks to an NBA championship this past postseason and was awarded the NBA Finals MVP award for his efforts.

The Knicks took down a talented/young Spurs team that was looking to complete a historic playoff run, after beating the Thunder in the WCF.

San Antonio fought hard in a lot of close NBA Finals games, but the Knicks were able to play better and win more clutch games, which ended the Spurs' dreams of claiming yet another NBA title.

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Despite being on the losing side in that series, Wembanyama was still named the cover athlete for NBA2K27, which turned some heads on Wednesday.

A player's recent postseason success isn't always the determining factor in whether or not they are named the cover athlete of the following season's NBA2K game, but we've seen that play a major role in the past couple of seasons.

After winning a title with the Celtics in 2024, Jayson Tatum was the cover athlete for NBA2K25 and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was given the same recognition this past year for NBA2K26, after winning the NBA Finals MVP with the Thunder in 2025.

Wembanyama's international fame may have played a role, as he's become one of the faces of the NBA in just his first few seasons in the league.

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For what it counts, he has 6.2 million Instagram followers compared to Brunson's 2 million, showing how far of a reach he has in the sports world.

Additionally, in the regular season, Wembanyama had a much stronger year overall and received far more MVP votes than Brunson did.

The argument that Brunson deserved it is definitely a fair one, but at the end of the day, he'll likely be named a cover athlete for one of the future games anyway.

He'll be competing with the likes of Nikola Jokic, Anthony Edwards and others in the coming seasons for that recognition.

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