Kyrie, Kristaps, and the Knicks choosing door #2
On the day the Finals begin, the Celtics & Mavs are counting on two players once seen as Knicks saviors. Instead, the Knicks went elsewhere — to the benefit of all involved
The NBA’s Eastern conference is rich with teams that can argue there’s is the best big/little combination today. Jayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday are up there. In theory Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard should be; after their disappointing first stab at simpatico a second year together could be just what the doctor ordered, Rivers or no. Cleveland’s the rare bird who can trade an All-Star at both positions – Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen – and promote what’s probably a superior solution in Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley. Whatever your feelings regarding Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam, they have reason to fancy themselves too.
Yet I wouldn’t choose any of those pairings over Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson – not as a duo. Holiday turns 34 during the Finals; Lillard does next month. Both Cavs’ halves have there appeal, but Brunson’s bested both their littles on the biggest stage, while Allen and Mobley could never look as hot in Yankees gear as Randle – and that’s coming from a Mets fan.
And while the Pacers had an undeniably A+ season and no team can do anything more than beat the teams in front of them, the teams in front of them for two playoff rounds were without Giannis, Lillard, Randle and a clown car’s worth of injured Knicks. The West has its dynamic duos, but the same greatness gap you find between Batman and Robin exists with Nikola Jokić/Jamal Murray, Anthony Edwards/Karl-Anthony Towns and Kawhi Leonard/The Human Slowdown Strike.
What about a pair that never was?
Five years ago, the Knicks passed on a future with Kristaps Porziņģis, trading him to Dallas. A few months later, in the wake of Kevin Durant’s torn Achilles in the Finals, they passed on a path that could have seen Kyrie Irving, the NBA’s Doubting Thomas, journey to the Mecca. Five years later KP and Kyrie are slated to meet in the Finals, where the Celtics and Mavs hope their guy proves to be the move that wins them their first championship in 16 or 13 years. For the Knicks, passing on both started them on the road to success after years riding the curb of ineptitude.
I wrote “slated to meet” because while KP confirmed he’ll play in Game 1, his first action since injuring his calf at the end of April, he responded thusly when asked if he’s 100%: “Good question. I don’t know. We’ll see.” A day earlier, he paused for nearly 10 seconds when asked if he’s running pain-free.
The Knicks moved on from Porziņģis in part because of concerns his unique unicorn body was uniquely unfit to survive; he missed 142 games his first four years, or 43%, including all of 2018-19. By contrast, in 10 years Randle has missed 153 games – just 19%, which includes the 81 he missed as a rookie after breaking his leg the first game and the 36 lost this past season after dislocating his shoulder. Even over a career bookended by devastating injuries, Randle’s mostly been an ironman, albeit one who hasn’t played since January 27th, back when the world asked Israel to stop its genocide against the Palestinian people, a major American newspaper owner tried to kill a story for personal reasons and Donald Trump was convicted in a New York courtroom.
Okay, so much of the world is still trying to stop the slaughter, newspaper powers-that-be are still looking to bury truths and Trump is again guilty of a crime. As for KP, in five full seasons since the Knicks traded him he’s missed another 122 games (39%). Quoth German director Roland Emmerich: “Do not fear. Some things will never change.” Fortunately for Porziņģis and the Knickerbockers, sometimes things do – even for the better.
With Brunson eternal sunshining Knick fans’ collective memories, it’s easy to forget that in the long night between Carmelo Anthony looking like he should be the answer and Brunson playing like it, Porziņģis was the lone flicker of light, the hero who came closest to restoring hope.
But it would have been a false dawn. For all involved.
It wasn’t long after KP’s arrival that Phil Jackson was packing Melo’s bags for him. Imagine growing up in Liepāja, Latvia, dreaming of making it to the NBA – young Neil Armstrong would’ve gotten fewer laughs telling his friends he’d one day walk on the moon. Yet somehow you make it – to New York City, to Madison Square Garden, of all places. At the other forward spot is the Assocation’s 12th-leading scorer of all-time, a first-ballot Hall of Famer and the man who led the Knicks to their three best years and only playoff series win in over a decade . . . and the team president does everything to get rid of him short of calling in the posse to run him out of town. And a lot of Knick fans would’ve volunteered to do it for him.
Porziņģis was in a no-win situation: nobody drafted as high as him (fourth, New York’s highest pick since Patrick Ewing) was ever going to satisfy here as anything besides a franchise savior, a number-one option – and as time has borne out, that’s someone he’s not. Imagine the Knicks never traded him, and 10 years into his career he’s a secondary star who’s still an injury concern and who’s played a grand total of 14 playoff games (Brunson played 13 this year). Even if the broad strokes remained the same – the Knicks cycle through a couple uninspiring coaches and general managers before landing on Leon Rose and Tom Thibodeau – it wouldn’t have worked; the shelf life on messiahs is shorter than a Ramones song. It’s not so much that New Yorkers have no impulse control, but the same people who don’t wait for the DON’T WALK sign to change before walking weren’t gonna wait 10 years to settle on “Ehh, maybe he’s not great, but he’s pretty good.”
And who’s to say KP would have grown as much as he has if he’d stayed? Derek Harper, who would have been the 1994 Finals MVP if the Knicks had won and whose jersey was retired by the Mavericks, predicted multiple titles for Porziņģis and Luka Dončić. Most athletes exhale when they leave NYC; KP left the Big Apple frying pan for the big everything in the fiery Texas heat. That presumed perfect fit alongside Luka? Imperfect. And while the Knicks acquired him with a single lottery pick that might otherwise have been wasted on Mario Hezonja or Stanley Johnson, the Mavericks won’t be done paying for a player they got rid of two and a half years ago until the last draft pick they owe the Knicks conveys later this month.
In The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne gets his back broken in a fight before being dumped in an underground prison/pit halfway across the world – a case of the Mondays for anyone, but for the man once lauded as Gotham’s superhero it had to hurt more. Porziņģis broke in with Gotham-savior hype, then generated multiple-titles hype halfway across the country before being dropped into the basketball prison known as the Washington Wizards. His star fell so far so fast it made Lucifer dizzy. Put it this way: none of the supermajority of pundits who proclaimed the Mavs’ trade for KP the steal of the century could have guessed five years later the ex-Maverick would begin explaining the Dallas years with, “Not all of it was like not good.”
He’s in a good spot now, a tertiary star on the title favorites killing teams inside the arc. The Knicks are in a good spot, too. You know how OG Anunoby missed a lot of time this year? Porziņģis has missed the same percentage of action over a whole decade. The Celtics can afford the luxury of a sometime ceiling-raiser; their floor without him is still 50+ wins/conference finalist. Sometimes first marriages don’t work because neither person is ready for the weight of it working. KP and the Knicks splitting up saved their kids – the fans – from what would have been a dysfunctional, dispiriting descent.
The best way to avoid divorce is to never marry the wrong person in the first place. These days Leon Rose is next to godliness in Knick nation, but before him Rich Kleiman was the agent reports had coming to run the blue and orange, with the added perk of bringing top client Durant with him. That didn’t happen, but the following summer when KD and Kyrie were free agents and widely assumed to be bound for MSG, the Porziņģis trade was seen by many as the gambit that made capturing the king and queen all in one move possible. Durant’s Achilles injury was the death of that dream; credit the Knicks with learning their lesson after Antonio McDyess, Eddy Curry, Amar’e Stoudemire and Porziņģis and not hitching their wagon to a star 7-footer with injury concerns.
But Irving to the Knicks represented as big a move as any team could make to address any positional need – immediate or historical. Imagine Patrick Mahomes was a Jet tomorrow. That wouldn’t be any more of a leap forward than the Knicks signing Kyrie to replace 2019’s point guard of the future, Dennis Smith Jr. – the primary player acquired in the KP trade. Kyrie was three years younger than Durant. He still is!
Below is what the sky would look like if you replaced the moon with the planet Mercury.
This is what it’d look like if you replaced our sun with Arcturus, a red giant star.
Mercury doesn’t look all that different from the moon – it shouldn’t; it’s not even 1.5 times larger. Arcturus is 25 times bigger than our sun. For local and national media attention, the Brooklyn Nets are often the moon, sometimes Mercury, and when they had KD, Kyrie and James Harden they were like our sun. The Knicks are Arcturus. Irving eventually found the relative sunspot of Brooklyn oppressive. How do you think Covid Kyrie would have gone over if he were a Knick? You know how you flinch now whenever you see the words “Caitlin Clark” because of the bazaar of idiocy that pops up from all sides? Compared to that, Kyrie on the Knicks would be Arcturus in the sky 24/7/365.
The Knicks lost a lot moving on from Porziņģis and not moving on with Irving. KP would’ve had more sequences like the Phoenix video above. Irving, by uncountable miles, would have been a literal miracle at point guard after decades of Howard Eisleys, Chris Duhons and Ramon Sessionseses. The Garden crowd could have taken turns between frisson and déjà vu watching Rod Strickland’s godson follow in the footsteps of the man known as Bronx Jelly..
The Knicks also were right to pass on building around both – not just right at the time, but more than vindicated since. Trading Porziņģis freed up cap space for Randle, while just saying no to KD & Friends – remember: getting Durant and Irving required giving their BFF DeAndre Jordan a four-year, $40 million deal when no one in the league would have offered him half that – kept the Knicks out of any difficult or extended entanglements. While nobody missed Elfrid Payton or Kemba Walker once they were gone, their exits were painless precisely because they were easy. And because they were succeeded by Brunson. If Irving had come to New York and had things go similarly to how they did in Brooklyn, the Knicks would have been the ones trading him away for pennies on the dollar – or bitcoins, in the case of Spencer Dinwiddie, who nearly a year to the day prior was also the main ballast shipped from Washington to Dallas for KP.
There are lessons from these two players’ arcs to keep in mind when plotting the Knicks’ next few years. For all Porziņģis’ gifts, he had to go to a team with pretty much everything else set to be the piece that can put them over the top. If they win it all this season, it’s worth it. If they don’t, they come back next year with more pressure and more likelihood of more KP health setbacks. Anunoby looked like the piece that took the Knicks to a whole new championship level in January. If they win it all with him, whatever it takes to re-sign him will be worth it. If they don’t, the pressure will rise each year – especially if when OG suffers more health setbacks.
Wasabi probably won’t do much for you if you ordered chicken marsala. Wheelbarrows are great for yard work but rubbish when all you need is a nail. Boston and Brooklyn both thought Kyrie would put them over the top; in the end both paid handsome dowries for what turned out to be flings. As much flavor as he packs, Irving wasn’t what the Knicks needed five years ago. And while he is about as good a shooter as any high-volume scorer you’ll ever see – a career 47/39/89 slash line – Brunson is holistically better floor for this Thibodeau team. On the court Brunson is jabs and feints and syncopation, but as a leader he’s as direct and firm as a nail.
The last lesson the Knicks can take away from this year’s finalists is one they may need to apply this in a few weeks. The Celtics won 48 games in 2016, then reached the conference finals in 2017. They didn’t sit on their laurels; instead they brought in Kyrie and Gordon Hayward. Despite losing the former for nothing in free agency and dumping the latter for a second-round pick, their ethos was evident: once they smelled blood they dove into the deep end. The Mavs played to a 48-win clip the year of the Orlando bubble, then reached the conference finals the following season. They lost, then saw the chickens of their bungled Brunson arc come home to roost, losing him for nothing. Yet two years later, here they are in the Finals.
Both franchises managed the trickiness of going from a good team to a great one. Both did so despite losing irreplaceable talent and getting zero in return. The Knicks won 47 games two years ago; this year they were a shoulder/hamstring/ankle away from the conference finals. They’re looking to go from a good team to a great one. Batman tries and fails more than once to escape the pit he’s trapped in. Only when he takes a leap of faith does he finally reach the top.
I don’t know who the Knicks should sign or re-sign or trade for or draft. Whatever comes next is probably going to hurt. Sayonara, Randle? Mitchell Robinson? Donte DiVincenzo? Deuce McBride? But if they make a trade that in any way features Spencer Dinwiddie, it’s time to put the champagne on ice.
