Former Knick Kristaps Porziņģis Looks Back on 'Dream Come True' in New York
The New York Knicks' annual get-togethers with the Washington Wizards don't often require any calendar circling. This week could provide an exception.
Though the city's rivalry with the nation's capital often generates some hard feelings (namely on both the gridiron and ice), the Wizards' upcoming visit to Manhattan makes things personal: next Wednesday will mark the Knicks' second meeting with Washington in five days, as Madison Square Garden hosts a rematch of tonight's game, which set to be staged at Capital One Arena (7 p.m. ET, MSG).
Washington, inching closer toward the territory of sellers at the upcoming trade deadline, features a familiar face in its lineup in Kristaps Porziņģis, whose metropolitan heyday ... and exit ... remains long remembered. Though fans hardly feel the same way in hindsight, Porziņģis looks back on his time in New York as downright magical.
"It was a dream come true," Porziņģis recalled in an interview with Mark Medina of NBA.com. "In the moment, I didn’t realize it’s not like that everywhere. New York is a special place. Madison Square Garden is the most special place I had ever played in. But at that moment, I thought it was like that on every team. I had the most fun playing in The Garden."
Friday night is set to mark Porziņģis first showdown against the Knicks as a member of the Wizards, having been sent over from Dallas last February.
Porziņģis' tenure in New York was bookended by boos: many fans were annoyed by his original arrival in the fourth slot of the 2015 draft but Porziņģis won them over to the tune of 17.8-points and 7.1-rebound averages over a three-year term, which included an All-Star Game appearance in 2018.
Injuries, namely a torn ACL sustained two weeks after his All-Star showing, ate away at his career and he was eventually traded to the Mavericks after reported discontent with the direction of the franchise in January 2015. That made Porziņģis Public Enemy No. 1 in New York, which fans were more than happy to remind him of when he made his first on-court visit as a Maverick ten months later.
Other controversies were peppered into Porziņģis' New York career, such as his reported refusal to meet with then-head coach Jeff Hornacek at the end of the 2016-17 campaign, though he laughed that incident off by declaring "You think I came up with that?"
Funnily enough, the supposedly fickle nature of Knicks fans is one of the many things he misses about Manhattan.
"It’s the biggest stage you can play on," he said. "You go from being loved by everybody to (the opposite) all of a sudden. I’m not going to lie. I missed it."
If there's one regret that Porziņģis holds from his New York days, it's his communication, which he was inspired to work on during his modern excursions in Dallas and Washington.
"How things went with the communication wasn’t my style," he said. "My style would be different with whatever needed to be done. Maybe it was nothing. My style would’ve been different either way. But I was wrong. I was going with the flow."
"Could I go back and do things differently? For sure, from our side. I was hurt. If I kept playing, it would’ve been completely different ... I can only say really good things about the organization because I enjoyed it so much playing there in New York and playing in front of those fans."
Porziņģis carried an aura and desire to not get bogged down by his past and that's exactly what he's done in the nation's capital: he's averaging 22 points and team-best nine rebounds as Washington (18-24) tries to get back in the thick of the Eastern Conference's postseason chase, currently one game behind 10th-place Chicago for the last Eastern Conference playoff spot. He'll be a game-time decision for Wednesday's game, having missed a Wednesday win over the Bulls with a rib injury.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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