Kristaps Porzingis is only a month into his rookie year with the Knicks but he’s already making noise in more ways than one. He’s the king of the putback slam but he’s also had Dwight Howard dunk on him, prompting KP to circle their next matchup looking forward to getting one back on Dwight.
The kid has some serious confidence and it can’t be denied. He’s already taking shots at the Brooklyn Nets and their fans ahead of the ‘rivalry’ matchup between the two New York teams on Friday at Madison Square Garden.
Following from Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News.
“Sometimes I see with a Brooklyn hat on, I say, ‘What is that? You need a Knicks hat,’” Porzingis said. “I joke around with them. Sometimes I seem them. Not as many as Knicks fans, though.”
“I know our fans are better than Brooklyn’s fans,” he said. “It will be a good game. Brooklyn, they’re struggling this season. But they will try to win the rivalry as we want to win.”
he Latvian always said he wanted to be a member of the Knicks, and was exposed to the franchise while playing and living overseas.
The Nets? Not so much.
“Everybody knows Knicks but not really the Nets,” Porzingis said. “But yeah, I remember more of the New Jersey Nets than the Brooklyn Nets growing up. But yeah, it’s Lakers, Knicks, Bulls, those kind teams.”
What about Prokhorov?
“Everybody knows that (he owns the team),” Porzingis said. “He can do all that crazy stuff and he’s strong.”
At this rate, Kristaps will have his own statue outside of MSG before he wins the Rookie of they Year award. As the big man was awarded with Rookie of the Month honors for the Eastern Conference, alongside Minnesota Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns who won it for the West, he was bestowed an honor from the president of the Knicks and one of the best basketball minds of all-time, Phil Jackson.
Following from Ian Begley of ESPN.com.
“There’s the magical element to this young man that has caught the admiration of the fan base here in New York City and people around the country that follow the Knicks,” Jackson said of rookie Kristaps Porzingis in an interview with Sirius XM NBA hosts Rick Fox and Jared Greenberg. “In seeing this guy, he’s got the right temperament, the right attitude; he carries himself well.”
“He seems to have a very calm, balanced nature about his game. It’s a learning process,” Jackson said in his first public comments of the season. “I see growth almost from game to game and that’s really, that’s the ticket that you look at as you watch a young player. Is he developing? Is he learning? What’s the next matchup that he’s going to have to vs. a player he’s seen before? How is he learning to deal with the physical nature of our game, the speed of our game?”
KP is running New York right now, throwing shade at the Nets and also showing his fans some major love. As Carmelo Anthony said, this team will be Kristaps’ once his career is over and hopefully the duo can rake in some NBA titles while Kristaps fever runs rampant.
