Shoulder the load
Noah has surgery; KP says leadership was missed
Joakim Noah’s surgery to repair his right rotator cuff, performed Wednesday at the Hospital for Special Surgery, likely is the capper to one helluva disastrous first season with the Knicks.
Everything that could’ve gone wrong for Noah went wrong. On the bright side, next season can only look better.
Kristaps Porzingis, at a press conference this week in Latvia, indicated Noah’s leadership was missed in the second half of the season. Noah played just 46 games, making his last appearance on Feb. 4. The prevailing notion is the Porzingis-Noah front-court pairing didn’t work out nearly as well as Porzingis’ rookie-year tandem with center Robin Lopez, who had a solid season with the Bulls.
According to a translation provided by Latvian journalist Ingmars Jurison, Porzingis cited Noah for his early-season leadership when asked if there weren’t enough voices in the Knicks’ locker room.
“There was, especially at the start of the season,’’ Porzingis said. “Noah is a player who always used to play in the sys- tem. He knows the right way [to play], so he doesn’t want to step away from it, and maybe we needed a guy just like him. Right now, he maybe doesn’t play as well as he wants, so it was in some ways hard to be that leader.
“[Carmelo Anthony] off the court is calm. There are rare moments when he heats up about something, [Derrick] Rose is quiet, he barely talks. So Noah was the guy who tried to talk, tried to help and spoke to coaches, too. But even he could not influence the wrong decisions we made. It was difficult. ... He maybe did not play at the level we all wanted, but he could say [a]loud things others did not want to say.’’
Noah’s surgery requires approximately a five-month rehab, and he is expected to be ready for the start of training camp in late September. However, Noah, 32, is suspended for the first 12 games of next season to finish up his 20-game sentence for testing positive for androgen, a performance-enhancing drug. Willy Hernangomez, off a promising rookie season, is expected to be the starter.
For the NBA’s first awards show, June 26, fans can vote on six new categories, including “Block of the Year.” That means maybe a Knick will win something. Porzingis is a candidate for his block/catch of a Spencer Dinwiddie runner March 13 in Brooklyn. The other categories are Dunk of the Year, Best Style, Assist of the Year, Gamewinner of the Year and Top Performance of the Year.