ABOVE ALL ELSE
THE franchise cornerstone was sick and tired of the losing, of the dysfunction, of the relentless assault on his pride as a professional. He had grown tired of New York, but he had really grown weary of the Knicks, and of Madison Square Garden, the corporate cartoon that kept letting him down. He’d had enough. “I want out,” Patrick Ewing said. This was July 1991, and Ewing’s frustrations had boiled and bubbled far longer than Kristaps Porzingis’ have. Ewing already put in six hard years at the Garden, already won a playoff series, already initiated what would become a remarkable rivalry with the Bulls. And he already had been turned on by Knicks fans, who famously showered the Garden floor with life-sized posters.
Ewing had tried to get the NBA to void the four remaining years of his contract, he was so fed up with what he saw happening with the Knicks. In his mind, he already had been traded. Now, in a hotel room in Washington, D.C., he hoped to make that abundantly clear to his visitor, a man whose impressive résumé had thus far left Ewing unmoved.
“I want you to think about something,” Pat Riley told Ewing that day nearly 26 years ago. “I want you to close your eyes and think of a championship parade on Broadway and what that would mean to New York City and what that would mean to you.”
Riley, who was about to begin his first season with he Knicks, would achieve one of his most important coaching victories that afternoon, selling Ewing on spending the rest of his prime chasing that vision of a million people gathered along the Canyon of Heroes. It really doesn’t matter the closest Ewing ever came to that was witnessing the Rangers’ parade in 1994, a few days before his own best chance at a title would expire. And it doesn’t matter the Riley-Ewing partnership was but a tantalizing blip on the screen of Knicks history. What matters is this: Before Phil Jackson does anything else as the president of the Knicks, before he figures out where he is drafting and whom he is drafting, before he figures out what to do about Carmelo Anthony, before he figures out how to best hypnotize players who detest the triangle so they will learn to embrace the triangle, he has one priority to tend to.
He has to make things right between himself and Porzingis.
That doesn’t mean Porzingis was right to blow off his exit meeting last week. Porzingis’ intentions may have been pure, but his result was insubordination, and that can’t be applauded. There’s more to being a professional than getting paid, and there will come a time when he will understand that.
That said, he is clearly unhappy.
And the Knicks cannot afford to have Porzingis unhappy, even if he has two years left on his contract, even if he won’t have full control over his future work destinations for two years after that. This is a pretty basic truth: The Knicks need Porzingis — they need his continued development, but more important, they need his continued commitment. Their future depends on it.
I thought it was a little odd Friday, during Jackson’s State of the Disunion press conference, when I asked him this question: “If you do move Carmelo, do you believe Porzingis is ready to be the franchise’s foundation.”
“No,” Jackson replied. “He’s 21 years old. That’s a big load for anybody to take on.”
Well, unless Courtney Lee or Ron Baker is prepared to take some kind of unprecedented quantum leap, a post-Melo Knicks team that doesn’t revolve around Porzingis will really be something to behold, so he can’t possibly mean that. Of course, what we learned a little later that day is that Jackson had just been stood up, and shown up, by that same 21-year-old. That could make any boss a little testy.
Still, if his feelings were hurt? Tough. If he has a bad taste in his mouth because of Porzingis’ immaturity? That’s the price you pay. Twenty-six years ago, Pat Riley swallowed his pride and locked away his four championship rings and essentially begged Ewing and his 10 ring-free fingers to honor his contract and re-up his commitment to the Garden circus.
That probably wasn’t the favorite day of his career, but it was one of the most important. Jackson already has shown an inability to lure anyone else’s good players into a meeting. He’d better figure out how to do so with one of his own. That would be a start, anyway.