Guess 'Em! Mavs' Porzingis Names His 'All-Time NBA Dream Starting 5'
DALLAS - Kristaps Porzingis decided to fiddle around the other day on his Instagram account engage Dallas Mavericks fans with some questions and answers. In his time in Dallas, KP has certainly demonstrated himself to be thoughtful in the areas of basketball and more, but ...
Porzingis was asked to name his top five basketball players of all-time, active or not. Now, we can all do the same exercise for ourselves, and depending on our age, our perspective and our favorite team, some candidates seem ... easy.
Michael Jordan? Wilt Chamberlain? LeBron James?
KP went in another direction. And we're not trying to "argue'' that he's "wrong''; this is an off-the-cuff Q-and-A session, not a Masters thesis. Still ... the Latvian big man went with:
-The late Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant at shooting guard. A brilliant player, obviously, and top-of-mind as well. No bother to debate here.
-Shaquille O’Neal at the 5. Again, a Shaq vs. Wilt vs. Bill Russell vs. Kareem (and whomever else) is classic barroom-brawl stuff. No probem.
-Kevin Durant at the 3. A compelling argument can be made, we have no doubt.
-Kyrie Irving at the point. Wait ... what? In addition to a variety of legends KP could've tabbed here, doesn't Luka Doncic come to mind? Or maybe Porzingis views him as so much more than "just a point guard'' that he skipped over him?
-Happily, the list is salvaged by KP's fifth starter, at power forward, the one-and-only Dirk Nowitzki on his Top 5 list.
Porzingis' list is flawed but fun. But most of all, he demonstrated some DFW wisdom, and some BBIQ, by squeezing The UberMan in there. And, modestly, opted to not include himself just quite yet.
