Porzingis will own lowly rivals for years
There was always the deep rooted tradition of the Knicks in New York, the institution that the Nets were never going to overcome no matter how many pep rallies they hosted at Brooklyn Borough Hall.
But that’s not what the Nets are fighting now in their dying quest for New York’s attention. On the other side of the Manhattan Bridge, there’s the kind of young savior that Brooklyn can’t fathom for quite some time because of all those traded draft picks, because a perfectly good startup collapsed under Mikhail Prokhorov’s hubris.
This is Kristaps Porzingis’ town for the taking. The Nets needed somebody like the 7-3 Latvian to make their mark and reverse the pecking order, but instead blew their assets load on mercenaries Deron Williams, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
“Sometimes I see somebody with a Brooklyn hat on, I say, ‘What is that? You need a Knicks hat,’” Porzingis said ahead of Friday’s intra-borough game at the Garden. “I joke around with them. Sometimes I seem them. Not as many as Knicks fans, though.”
Apparently Porzingis, named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for November on Thursday, can make anything more interesting. His injection of G-rated trash-talk into this stale rivalry is the best thing to happen to Knicks-Nets since Pierce’s mouth left for Washington.
There’s no kind way to describe the state of the Nets: they’re in a bad place. A terrible place, actually, just nine months after CEO Brett Yormark declared the team was in position to “own the city.” They hold the secondworst record in the Eastern Conference at 5-13 despite a twogame winning streak. Their next first-round draft pick - and we’re not talking about a swapped or acquired one - is currently a freshman or sophomore in high school, waiting for 2019 to have his name called by Adam Silver. The crowds are dwindling at Barclays Center, reaching a record low of 12,241 last month. Their games are blacked out for Comcast subscribers because of a dispute with YES Network and nobody seems to care. Top free agents aren’t lining up to play alongside Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young. It’s tough to discern if the owner is buying more of the team or selling it.
The Knicks, on the other hand, are coming off a 65-loss disaster, remain under .500 this season and are still surrounded by positive vibes. Why? Porzingis. He has the fans, the city, the media, eating out of his hands. And maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised considering the 20-yearold was literally bred for this by his oldest brother.
“(Janis) was always thinking 10 steps ahead. When I was younger I took extra English classes just to make sure I have good English if I had the chance to play professionally. Things like that,” Porzingis said. “When I was young I was doing a lot of extra stuff for my body. Now that makes sense, all the stuff I did. At that time, I was like, ‘Why do you make me do all this stuff?’ But that just showed me how much they were preparing me for what’s coming.”
Derek Fisher theorized that
the twin brother matchup of Brook and Robin Lopez was the “most interesting” part of of Friday’s game. He was wrong. It’s Porzingis. It’s always Porzingis. The Lopez brothers could stage a light saber duel at the top of the Empire State Building and a debate about Porzingis’ nickname would still get more attention.
If anybody can recruit and galvanize fans, it’s a power forward with a swagger and penchant for thunderous putback dunks. He belongs to the Knicks, whose stranglehold on New York basketball hasn’t been stronger since they were the only team in the city.
Sometimes I see someone with a Brooklyn hat on, I say, ‘What is that?’