Back before the 2017 NBA Draft, there was some speculation that the New York Knicks could trade star big man Kristaps Porzingis.
Well, apparently, that speculation was very real, as then-Knicks president Phil Jackson was taking offers on Porzingis.
One team that came calling was the Boston Celtics, who were a rumored destination at the time.
According to Marc Berman of The New York Post, the Celtics made an offer that included Jaylen Brown and assets that would have allowed the Knicks to move up in the draft to take big man Lauri Markkanen.
New York ultimately did not pull the trigger, with Berman stating that Jackson received orders from owner James Dolan not to do it.
Of course, Porzingis went on to tear his ACL midway through the 2017-18 campaign and would never play another game for the Knicks again from that point moving forward, as New York sent him to the Dallas Mavericks for a package headlined by Dennis Smith Jr. last January.
Obviously, we don't know for sure exactly what was on the table or what potentially stopped Jackson and the Knicks from making that trade with Boston, but if the rumor is true and that Dolan squashed the deal, he is probably feeling a whole lot of regret right now.
While Brown is not a star player just yet, he is certainly an ascending young talent who just landed a four-year extension from the C's last month, and Markkanen looks like a future stud in Chicago. Meanwhile, Smith is struggling to get minutes in a Knicks rotation that includes Frank Ntilikina and Elfrid Payton, two guys who aren't exactly stalwarts in the backcourt.
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