For a team that has shown remarkable ineptitude in getting anything off the ground the past several seasons, the New York Knicks sound just like the kind of franchise that needs at least a few modifications if it ever wants to have any semblance of success in the future.
Enter new head coach David Fizdale, whose plans of improving the team includes the idea of moving Kristaps Porzingis to the small forward position, per Al Iannazzone of Newsday.
Porzingis prefers to play power forward. But Fizdale told Porzingis how he wants to play him, and he said Porzingis is on board.
“In our conversations I just told him, ‘I don’t have a position for you. Are you cool with that?’ ” Fizdale said. “He’s like, ‘Absolutely.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t like being put in a box.’
Porzingis has been part of the Knicks’ frontcourt since entering the league in 2015. He’s mostly served the role of either center or power forward, but rarely, if at all, has he been used throughout a single game as a small forward. He’s been branded a unicorn because of his combination of size, mobility, and range rarely seen from a 7-foot-3 player, but it’s not common either to see a player of his length play the “3” as well.
Fizdale’s flirtation of that idea goes in line with his reported resistance to pigeonholing his players to a specific position.
Kristaps Porzingis, however, is not likely to be back to action until at least December as he is still recuperating from a knee injury. For the time being, Porzingis might want to start planning the ways how could terrorize opponents as an oversized small forward.
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