Of course, the crowded crowd at Madison Square Garden is the first thing that strikes you, as blissful pre-pandemic scenes always dazzle people with memories of what life used to be. The next thing you’ll see on this Kristaps Porzingis tape is his extreme skill and athleticism as he breaks away from the most athletic player in the game.
Giannis Antetokounmpo holds Porzingis’s jersey like a middle-aged weekend warrior would at local Y. Trey Burke screens the Bucks franchise player by the left elbow and his 7-foot-3 teammate frees himself from the defender above the foul. line, who is preparing to take a pass from Kyle O’Quinn.
But when Jason Terry from the Bucks jumps onto the passing lane, the Unicorn does something very unicorn: he stops on a dime like a wide receiver coming out of a break, Terry and Antetokounmpo splits on a hard dive to the basket, and takes Quinns bounce pass into the air for a high-flying dive over the Greek Freak as camera lights flash around them.
The basket put the home team at 31-30 with 8:51 over in the second quarter. The Knicks held a record of 23-31 in the February 6, 2018 game, and were fully expected to miss the playoffs for the fifth year in a row. But fans still had 22-year-old Porzingis on the air that night, who hailed the Freak as a proud member of Team LeBron on his way to his first All-Star Game. If you can’t sell the profit to your customers, you can certainly sell that kind of hope.
But like the most recent bursts of Knick prosperity – Linsanity in 2012, Melo’s 54-win season the following year – this one ended way too soon. In fact, it took about two seconds after that dive over Antetokounmpo for a fallen Porzingis to reach his left knee. The fans couldn’t even get out of their seats until their joy turned to havoc.
No ticket holder that night had ever thought he or she was watching the final act on the field of the Porzingis passion play in New York. Out of court, injured Knick walked into Steve Mills’ office almost a year later and told team president and general manager Scott Perry that he wanted to leave, and that if they didn’t trade him, he would leave for Europe. The Knicks made the deal with the Mavericks, who sent back Dennis Smith Jr., Wesley Matthews and two first-round picks. Oh, and DeAndre Jordan, who had to help convince his Olympic teammates and friends Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to fill the Knicks’ extensive cap space.
Instead, Jordan joined Durant and Irving in Brooklyn, putting a rotten cherry on top of a summer that made the Knicks’ decision to buy Porzingis look only slightly better than Charlotte’s decision to buy Kobe Bryant in 1996. to trade. with some of the money they were saving for KD and Irving, the trade looked less disastrous. Randle, who is only eight months older than Porzingis, went into Dallas Friday night and outperformed him (23.2-20.7) and outperformed him (10.6-9.3), though the Mavs star beat his counterpart in player efficiency (22,26). -19.73). And Marcus Morris, another 2019 signer, was traded in for a late first round, which ultimately helped the Knicks land Immanuel Quickley.
Smith was a disaster, and while Porzingis was a high-level Maverick when he was healthy, and while teammate Tim Hardaway Jr. After 95 games has started, the three players the Knicks received in the deal are all employed by other teams.
But if Randle establishes itself over the next few years as a healthier, more productive force forward than Porzingis, and if the Knicks hit at least one of those two Dallas Draft picks, hey, the Porzingis trade isn’t going to be such an apocalyptic event. In the end, perhaps the Knicks should have called KP’s European bluff (as the Nets should have called Kobe’s European bluff before letting him go to the Lakers via Charlotte), and gambled that his injury history would have forced him to sign up for a lengthy run in New York City. Time will tell.
Meanwhile, if you’re a fan who wants to remember how the Knicks started developing a design pick into a star for the first time since they got Patrick Ewing, go back and watch the video from Porzingis’ latest Garden play. Just stop it after the dunk follow-up on the Freak, before the ditching and grab and fist banging the ground.
Freeze it there, in the air, and remember a fleeting moment of Knick’s ecstasy before several more long winters of Knick’s pain.