Kristaps Porzingis was back in the Big Apple Wednesday night to play his former team, the New York Knicks. He used to star for the Knicks, proving his draft-day haters wrong with exceptional play for a man his size in his early years in the NBA.
But it's also been years since he last suited up for the Knicks, and when he was asked after the Washington Wizards beat the Knicks, 116-105, about the trade that sent him to the Dallas Mavericks, the Latvian unicorn sounded resentful over how his marriage with the New York franchise ended.
“The way the trade happened I did some dumb stuff, like some cryptic tweets. The whole process was just a mess. I didn’t like the way things ended. That wasn’t how I wanted it to end if it did end,” Porzingis said to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype.
Porzingis scored 22 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in the win over the Knicks.
Unhappy with the direction of the Knicks during his time in New York, Porzingis was surprisingly traded to the Mavs in 2019 along with Courtney Lee , Tim Hardaway Jr., and Trey Burke in exchange for Dennis Smith Jr., Wesley Matthews, DeAndre Jordan, and future picks.
Kristaps Porzingis remains a star in the NBA, but he could have been a much bigger figure in the league if he and the Knicks managed to stick together and build a winning culture in Gotham.
The Mavs would trade Porzingis in February 2022 along with the rights to a 2022 pick for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans.
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