The New York Knicks infamously traded superstar big man Kristaps Porzingis to the Dallas Mavericks earlier in the year. With the trade previously making major waves throughout the NBA, such a deal has now come along with some potentially significant controversy, as the Latvian power forward was recently accused of rape during his time with the Knickerbockers.
Though the New York Police Department continues its investigation about the allegations, details surrounding the reported incident from February 7, 2018 continue to emerge — both related and unrelated to basketball. Apparently, according to Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News, the Mavs were unaware of the rape allegations against Porzingis upon originally acquiring him from the Knicks.
Two league sources on Sunday strongly contradicted Saturday's report by ESPN that the Knicks informed the Mavericks of a pending rape allegation against Kristaps Porzingis during the Jan. 31 call with NBA officials to finalize Porzingis' trade to Dallas.
“The word that was used was ‘extortion,'” one of the sources told The Dallas Morning News on Sunday.
“The word ‘rape' was never used, only ‘extortion,'” the second source told The News.
It remains to be seen how the Mavs will act on the issue given the recent developments. Owner Mark Cuban has already refused to comment about the accusation, while Kristaps Porzingis' camp has denied the allegations and said that they already “made a formal referral to federal law enforcement on Dec. 20, 2018, based on the accuser’s extortionate demands.”
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