CROSSED LINE
Says Porzingis ‘wrong’ to blow off exit meeting
Knicks legend Charles Oakley was always one to speak his mind, however uncomfortable his words made people at the Garden.
Running counter to that type of forthcomingness is Kristaps Porzingis’ decision to skip his exit meeting, which Oakley told the Daily News was the wrong move. It especially annoys Oakley that Porzingis had the audacity to pull that off as a second-year player with a 63-101 record on his resume
“He’s wrong for that. You can’t do that,” Oakley told the Daily News on Friday, two days before his debut as a player/coach with Ice Cube’s Big3 League at Barclays Center. “Not being two years in the league and you’ve been on the team two years and you won 32 games and 31 games. I mean, you don’t do that. Especially when you’re in town (at the same time the meeting was supposed to take place). You don’t do that. That’s wrong.”
As you might’ve guessed, Oakley believes Porzingis should’ve confronted Jackson about his issues, rather than take the route of a silent protest. Porzingis has not spoken to anybody on the Knicks since the end of last season, conducting his offseason training overseas and outside of the direction of his team.
On the flip side, Jackson publicly acknowledged he started fielding trade offers for Porzingis without informing the 21-year-old Latvian. Communication has been severed, and maybe also the partnership if Jackson finds a suitable trade offer.
“(Porzingis) should tell (Jackson) himself. That’s why you got a mouth,” Oakley said. “All they can do is trade you or keep you. But you got to realize that you have an opinion too. You can’t worry about what they will do. But all you can do is tell them to respect you. When they disrespect you, you have a right to say something to them. If you disrespect them, they have a right to say something to you. You can’t be sensitive. It’s a two-way street.”
While many players – post and present – have sided against Jackson and his triangle, Oakley believes the Knicks should follow the Zen Master’s plan rather than acting overly sensitive and entitled. With Carmelo Anthony a part of the resistance, New York never really committed to running Jackson’s complicated offense last season – leading to yet another rebuild from the team president as he looks for personalities who will buy into his system. “Guys are sensitive these days. Yeah, (the team) demands a lot. They should demand a lot. They’re paying you a lot of money,” said Oakley, who called Jackson, ‘The Greatest Coach of All-time.’ “My thing is the guys should want to do something different. Learn the triangle. Learn the triangle and if doesn’t work, the coach gets fired or the president and the GM gets fired. Just try. You gotta try. Don’t say, ‘I don’t want to do this, because, whatever.’ Don’t give up on something. You got to work hard. It’s about work. These guys are just used to going out on the court and standing in one place all the time. With the triangle, you have to move.” Still, Oakley said Jackson has no right to get expect differently from Anthony after signing him to that contract – “He knew that’s who Melo was when he signed him,” he said. Oakley also made sure to clarify that he’s hardly an insider in the Knicks organization, given his ostracized status at the Garden following a decade there of winning.
“I don’t know why you’re talking to me, the last game I went to, I couldn’t even watch,” he joked about infamously getting dragged out of the arena in cuffs last season.
Another former Knick – Kenyon Martin – was more critical of the overall dysfunction at the Garden, with James Dolan as the main culprit.
“It starts up top. It’s been that way for a long time. It’s what it is. The proof is the pudding,” Martin told the News. “It starts with ownership and then management. Ownership picks the management and management picks the players. So when ownership picks a f---ked up management, the management picks f---cked up players. It’s just the way it is.”
FRENCH FRIED: Frank Ntilikina’s very long round-trip ended in defeat.
The point guard’s French team, Strasbourg, lost Friday in the league final to Chalon in France, 74-65, less than 24 hours after he was drafted eighth overall by the Knicks.
Ntilikina played 24 minutes and scored nine points after deciding to fly between games to Brooklyn and back for the draft. At least the 18-year-old wasn’t injured. His next competitive game will with the Knicks’ Summer League in Orlando next week.