New York Knicks star rookie Kristaps Porzingis has set the world on fire with his play early on in his first season. He’s already won rookie of the month honors and the kid is putting down putback slams with ease.
Going into last night’s matchup with the Dallas Mavericks the Latvian seven-footer matched up against a player he’s been getting compared to since he first was getting scouted out of Sevilla in Spain. KP matched up with Dirk Nowitzki and the matchup between the two foreign stars was great.
After Dallas picked up the win, it was the owner of the Mavs, Mark Cuban, who revealed how infatuated he was with Kristaps going into the draft.
Following from Marc Berman of the New York Post.
“We would have traded up in a heartbeat to get that kid,’’ Cuban said before the first Porzingis-Nowitzki showdown. “We loved him. Obviously, people are going to compare him to Dirk because that’s what people like to do. When you’re 7-foot-3, those three inches make a difference.
“I’m a Porzingis fan. I’ve got my Russian insults all packaged up to starting screaming at him with my high school Russian. Porzingis is the real deal. He’s got some s–t to him and that’s different.”
(Important to note, Kristaps is not Russian, he’s Latvian.)
This might just be Cuban hopping on the KP hype train but the hype is well warranted. It’s actually a surprise that the Mavs even kept their pick in the 2015 NBA Draft and selected Justin Anderson.
Speaking of Justin Anderson, I wonder how this makes him feel? Essentially Cuban is saying that he’d rather have Porzingis over Anderson so as a current member of the team as the lone rookie, it might make Anderson feel some type of way. Justin is no slouch and Cuban actually might have gotten a steal with him at the 21st pick.
