Kristaps Porzingis is clearly the New York Knicks’ best player today despite the best efforts of Tim Hardaway Jr. to shoot the air out of the basketball every game.
Porzingis isn’t only the team’s best offensive weapon. He’s also the Knicks’ most important piece on the other end of the floor. These are two facts that are substantially reinforced by both regular and advanced statistics.
For starters, the Latvian unicorn is leading New York with 29.0 points and 1.8 blocks per game. When it comes to sabermetrics, Porzingis tops the Knicks in offensive and defensive win shares this season.
But if you don’t have time to listen to us mumble more about in-season stats, let’s just give you one hard evidence of Porzingis’ dominance in the form of the 7-foot-3 forward’s performance last Friday against the Phoenix Suns.
In that game, Porzingis had 37 points, seven rebounds, and three blocks to help New York earn a 120-107 win at home. For those counting, that’s the second time Porzingis matched all those numbers in a game this week. (He had 38 points, seven boards, and three swats in last Monday’s 116-110 win versus the Denver Nuggets.)
That’s a remarkable and rare feat Porzingis just accomplished twice this week. The operative word there is “rare” because before Porzingis landed in Manhattan, there were only two instances the 37-7-3 stat line was matched or surpassed by a Knicks player over the past 20 seasons, per Tommy Beer of Basketball Insiders. (Nice name, by the way.)
Over the last 20 years, there were only 2 games in which a Knicks player had at least 37 pts, 7 rebs & 3 blks
KP has 2 such games THIS WEEK
— Tommy Beer (@TommyBeer) November 4, 2017
According to the ever-indispensable Basketball Reference, it was Amar’e Stoudemire who was the last Knick to do it, and like Porzingis, the now-retired big man had done it twice while wearing Knicks threads.
Porzingis is still just 22, and his best is yet to come. He’d probably go on and record a boatload more of 37-7-3s in his career. Not bad for a guy who got booed on draft day.
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