Kristaps Porzingis Would Change One Thing About His Career
For the first time in his NBA career, Boston Celtics big man Kristaps Porzingis seems to really feel at home. The Celtics are one of the best teams in the league thus far this season, looking like legitimate NBA contenders.
The presence of Porzingis is a big reason for that. He has played well on both ends of the court, providing intimidating rim protection on defense and efficient scoring on offense. In Boston, he is playing a complementary role to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the team’s two stars.
Playing off of them has led to Porzingis averaging 18.9 points per game, his lowest since his second season in the NBA. The 2016-17 was also the last time that he didn’t average at least 20 points per game in a season.
That is likely something the younger version of himself would not have been happy about. During an appearance on J.J. Redick’s “Old Man & The Three” podcast, Porzingis opened up about how he has matured since his days with the New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks earlier in his career.
With the Mavericks, he admitted maturity was a big reason that things didn’t work out. He was brought in to be the co-star, the 1B to Luka Doncic’s 1A, but it wasn’t something he was readily accepting of. As a result, the Mavericks traded him to the Washington Wizards, where he spent a season and a half before being traded to the Celtics this offseason.
There are certainly some things from his tenure in Dallas that Porzingis wishes he could fix. However, the one thing that he wishes he could change the most in his career, was asking the Knicks for a trade years ago.
As Porzingis detailed, there were a lot of events that led up to him being traded from the Big Apple. Picking out his own trainer do his rehab and the involvement of his brother, who was his representation, certainly didn’t help the cause.
He was only 23 years old at the time and had a lot of learning and development to do. Given the growth and experience he has gained in the years since he can look objectively at how things went down with the Knicks and take accountability for whatever part he played in the relationship souring in the fashion it did.
There are certainly still mixed feelings, at least from Knicks fans, as Porzingis was a cornerstone player for the franchise, making his first and only All-Star team before tearing his ACL. It is anyone’s guess how things would have turned out if not for the quasi-trade request, but both parties have landed in good spots since.
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