Documentary reveals Porzingis family tragedy
An E:60 documentary that aired Sunday on Kristaps Porzingis’ life journey from Latvia to the Knicks revealed a family tragedy that was previously unreported.
According to the ESPN show, filmed mostly in Latvia last summer, another Porzingis brother passed away before Kristaps was born. Kristaps Porzingis has two older brothers, Janis, his agent, and Martins, his manager.
After Janis and Martins were born, the family had a third son, Toms. He died at 14 months old — four years before Kristaps entered the world.
Speaking in Latvian, his mother, Ingrida Porzingis, said: “It felt like a bulldozer had run over my life. We had two other children who we had to care for. We had to live on. After Kristaps was born, it was like he had to live for two lives.’’
The family wouldn’t go into detail on the death. Janis was quoted saying Kristaps, as a result, got “double attention.’’
The last filming for the documentary occurred in mid-April at Kristaps Porzingis’ apartment complex in Midtown, where he lives with his brothers. It came the day before he bolted for Latvia after missing his exit meeting with Phil Jackson. Porzingis said in the documentary only that he had his reasons for missing it.
The documentary was oddly timed, considering his ongoing feud with Jackson and the trade talks the team president held before the draft last week. The Post reported Saturday that Jackson is concerned Porzingis will not want to sign a second contract with the Knicks when he becomes a restricted free agent in 2019.
The Cavaliers don’t appear interested in trading for Carmelo Anthony — Paul George is their target — but reportedly would be a leading contender if the Knicks bought the 10time All-Star out. You don’t say.
ESPN reported the Cavaliers, Pacers and Nuggets engaged in serious three-way trade talk that would have landed George in Cleveland and Kevin Love in Denver.
The Cavaliers declined the Knicks offer of a Love-for-Anthony swap at the trade deadline, but that was under the old regime. ESPN’s Cavs reporter, Brian Windhorst, said on radio the Cavs would be interested in Dwyane Wade and Anthony, but only if waived.
Chauncey Billups, a friend and former teammate of Anthony’s in Denver and New York, is a top candidate to take over for the dismissed Cavaliers general manager David Griffin. In his role as an ABC/ ESPN commentator, Billups is on record saying Anthony would fit in well in Cleveland.
Knicks president Phil Jackson said on MSG Network Wednesday Anthony let him know he would “just as soon stay’’ in New York, meaning he would invoke his no-trade clause. That could be Anthony’s way of forcing Jackson to release him, though he’d lose the trade-kicker bonus.
For the third time, Jackson beat the drum that Anthony needs to go on the eve of the draft, saying, “We’ve expressed the fact that we’ve done a lot of things to put teams together that can win and we haven’t been successful and it might be time for him to try to go somewhere else.’’
Anthony’s $30 million-plus contract — with trade kicker — makes it difficult to engineer a trade under salary-cap rules. However, as The Post reported, Jackson can gain an asset — cap space — if he waives Anthony under the stretch provision.
The Post reported releasing Anthony under those stipulations — spreading the $54.1 million left of his contract across five years — opens $15.4 million in cap space later this week for free agents. If the Knicks don’t renounce the rights to Derrick Rose (cap hold $30 million), they won’t have any cap space entering Saturday’s start of free agency.