I can’t stop thinking about a question I keep seeing online: will the NBA champion New York Knicks go to the White House?

As a journalist and former CNN anchor, I’ve covered plenty of championship teams making the relatively routine pilgrimage to the White House. But let’s be honest: these visits have never really been about sports – regardless of who’s sitting in the Oval Office.

On the surface, these White House victory laps are about sports and politics. But underneath it, I think it’s about something else entirely.

It’s about values.

I’ve been especially thinking about Jalen Brunson, the superstar point guard for the Knicks. Because in some ways, he feels like an increasingly rare American archetype.

Here’s a player who wasn’t the most hyped recruit – he was drafted in the second round, after all – nor was he the anointed superstar. By almost every account, he built his career through discipline, humility, consistency and trust.

Then, in an era that often celebrates getting more money, more fame, more status, he reportedly left more than $100 million on the table from other offers so the Knicks could continue building a team around him.

Who does that?

Whether you follow basketball or not, the story resonates because sacrifice for the collective has become increasingly rare in American life.

And now consider this image: Jalen Brunson standing beside President Donald Trump. For some people, it would be inspiring. For others, upsetting. For many… complicated.

But perhaps the juxtaposition itself is the point.

These are two profoundly different leadership archetypes. One story is often told through the lens of patience, teamwork and earning trust over time. The other is frequently associated with winning, branding, disruption and personal power.

The temptation in our current moment is to immediately decide who is “good” and who is “bad.” But I wonder if there’s another invitation available to us. What if the image isn’t a verdict? What if it’s a mirror?

Our current national unraveling isn’t simply political. It’s moral. It’s cultural. It’s deeply personal.

We’re trying to figure out what qualities we most want to celebrate, reward and become. Not just in our leaders, but in ourselves.

And maybe that’s why so many of us are paying attention.

Moments like these ask us to practice something our democracy desperately needs: the ability to respect people whose choices we may not make ourselves; to remain curious about why others see things differently; and to stay in relationship with one another even when our values diverge.

As encouraged at Interfaith America: Respect. Relate. Cooperate.

Those words can sound lofty. But sometimes they look surprisingly ordinary. Sometimes they look like people with very different beliefs standing in the same room. Sometimes they look like a basketball team walking through a mighty powerful door.

Sports has always had a profound power in American life, giving us the opportunity for common stories and shared rituals. It allows people who disagree on nearly everything else to cheer for the same colors and root for the same outcome.

It reminds us that there are still places where we practice being on the same team.

I don’t know whether the Knicks will go to the White House. I don’t know whether they should. What I know is this: if they do, the image will inevitably become bigger than basketball.

Because every American looking at that photograph will, consciously or unconsciously, be answering a question: What kind of leadership do I admire?

And perhaps the more important one: what kind of person am I trying to become?

Brooke Baldwin is a journalist, author and storyteller dedicated to truth and transformation. She writes a top-rated Substack called “Unraveling.” She spent more than a decade anchoring her own show on CNN.