Briefing: May 13
1 More Day. KP in Latvian scuffle. And more!
Good Morning,
1 more day!
The lottery is tomorrow night. After all of the #Tanking and lottery simulations, we will finally learn where the Knicks will pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.
Watch with us: Come to Slattery’s Midtown Pub in Manhattan to watch the lottery results with us. We will be wishing the Knicks luck and raising money for charity. The event starts at 7:30 PM EST at Slattery’s on 8 East 36th Street.
Mariano Rivera is rooting for the Knicks in the lottery. “I’m not hoping, I’m praying,” the Hall-of-Famer told MSG Networks.
Stars want to play in New York. Gabrielle Union confirmed on Good Morning America that her dream job is to play point guard for the Knicks: “especially now with David Fizdale as the head coach?! Come on now.”
Anthony Davis rumors. The Pelicans have interest in both Kevin Knox and Mitchell Robinson, per Marc Berman. He adds in the report that former Nets assistant General Manager Bobby Marks believes an equitable pckage for Anthony Davis would be Zion (if landed), Knox, Ntilikina and two picks from Dallas from the KP trade.
More: Ian Begley reports, “some people in the Pelicans organization were quietly gathering some intel on Knox recently.” Begley adds in the report that “there is no consensus in the organization about trading its 2019 first-round pick, per sources. That's for [Anthony] Davis or anyone else.”
Crazy speculation time. Kevin Durant’s brother liked a comment that said “Naw” in response to a comment from @KnickzFeed suggesting Houston will have to run it back next year vs the Knicks instead of the Warriors (you know, since Durant will be with the Knicks). It’s a long way to July, but every little hint is being watched.
Kristaps Porzingis got into a scuffle in a Latvian bar over the weekend. A video surfaced showing the former-Knick with a bloody forehead and ripped t-shirt. Watch the video.
Russian Knicks fans? TMZ reports “a handful of Russians confronted Kristaps, supposedly upset with the fact that he'd switched teams down here in the States.”
Potential injuries: “Porzingis suffered a cut near his eye and “may have broken his hand,” according to a Lavian publication. And one of Porzingis’ friends needed to be resuscitated.
“According to a Latvian source, Porzingis was coming out of the bar as a group of Russians already were outside disputing with the bar’s security, who did not want to let them in. That is when the altercation ensued. The source said one of Porzingis’ friends was injured more severely.” [New York Post]
An audio recording of Kristaps Porzingis was translated for me in which he describes the altercation. Porzingis supposedly says an iron chair was thrown that hit him in the head. Porzingis said he threw punches and received a blow to the forehead and added one of his friends was knocked out cold.
The Mavericks are investigating the situation.
Macri’s Thoughts
As I write this, we're about 36 hours from the draft lottery that could wind up shaping the future of the New York Knicks for the nest decade or two...or just wind up being another footnote in the team's long history. More on that tomorrow.
In the meantime, a lot happened since our last one of these:
The Warriors advanced without Kevin Durant, and if we didn't know better, it seems they played with a little "we were fine before KD got here and we'll be fine after he leaves" edge to boot.
Kawhi Leonard continues his Michael Jordan Impersonation Tour, and buried the Sixers with the best bounce-bounce-bounce-in series winning shot since...well, since Allan Houston did the same thing 20 years ago this week.
Jimmy Butler and the Sixers got eliminated, maybe increasing the odds he looks elsewhere in free agency. He was indeed the adult in the room for Philly all postseason long, and I'm officially wavering on my "jeopardizing all this cap space with four-year maxes for Kemba and Jimmy might be the worst outcome of the summer" stance. I am a weak, weak man.
Enes Kanter continues to remind us that, no, he isn't the worst basketball player on the planet. He just occasionally played like it for the Knicks (if you're waiting for the moment of humility where I say I'm happy for the big guy, keep waiting for that cold day in hell. I don't mind that he played selfishly and not always with peak effort while he was here. Plenty of guys were guilty of that. He was no more or less the reason New York stunk this season than any of them. The reason he'll go down as my most loathed Knick ever is because he tried to convince us all that it was a crime against humanity when he was benched for the betterment of the team. The clown show he pulled throughout that process remains the most shameless thing I've ever ever seen a pro athlete do that didn't involve a felony, not only because of the ethos behind it, but because he's not even that good of an actor, and expected us to buy what he was selling anyway. Have fun in Oakland, big guy.)
Oh, and speaking of clown shows: Kristy got into a dust up in Latvia, apparently with some angry Russians.
This is the part where I'd love to sit here and praise Scott Perry and Steve Mills for having the foresight to unload a guy who is shaping up to be maaaaaaybe not the dude you want to hitch your franchise's wagon to for the foreseeable future. We've had a lot of LOL Knicks moments over the years; they'd be nothing compared to the field day the media would be having if New York was entering this summer trying to sell this guy as the one Kevin Durant should want to come play alongside, let alone that they really have turned around the culture of the team.
But I can't. Truth be told, we don't know whether he's actually a bad dude or not, nor do we know whether the team's brass thought he was a bad dude when they traded him, or whether that factored into their decision. To ask a major media person to write the story about how the Knicks were geniuses for getting out when they did would be making a leap too far, especially when we still don't know how this summer is going to turn out.
But here's what I do want: for the handful of talking heads who killed the Knicks after the deal to man up and admit that maybe, just maybe, they were wrong in judging the transaction so harshly, that it's at least possible New York did have an inkling that Porzingis would not have been a wise long-term investment, and that rather than making a Hail Mary trade for cap space, the Knicks for once might have done the prudent thing in acting when and how they did. That's what I want.
Sadly I think there's a far better chance we end up with Zion Williamson tomorrow night.
Oh well.
Remember when…
May 13, 1994: Derek Harper and Jo Jo English start a brawl right in front of NBA Commissioner David Stern. The Knicks would later lose the game on a Toni Kukoc buzzer-beater that cut their series lead to 2-1. [Vivek Dadhania with more]
May 13, 2013: Tyson Chandler named to NBA All-Defensive first team.
May 13, 2008: Mike D’Antoni named 24th head coach in franchise history.
May 13, 1991: Harry Gallatin, who averaged 12.7 points over nine seasons with the Knicks, is enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA.
May 13, 1984: Knicks suffer 121-104 loss at Boston in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Bernard King scores a team high 24 points in the losing effort.
Thanks for reading, talk to you tomorrow!