New York Knicks: The Road to Respectability

Knicks: Kristaps Porzingis is Traded

Remember him? We all try not to. Tingis Pingis was supposed to be New York’s savior. His first three years on the team had fans raving at the potential of the 7’3 unicorn from Latvia who could shoot three’s from Curry range while blocking shots like he was Rudy Gobert. Unfortunately for Porzingis, and the Knicks at the time, he tore his ACL in the midst of what would’ve been his first All-Star appearance. The fan base was heartbroken. That 2017 season was very reminiscent of the feelings we have this year, in that we had a first-time PF all-star on the team and it looked like it was the beginning of a new area in the Big Apple.

We all know how that turned out. Porzingis was infamously traded for a package headlined by Dennis Smith Jr. (RIP), and two Dallas Maverick first-round draft picks. While the rest of the trade were filler players at the time, Tim Hardaway jr. has been a vital part of Dallas’ success and it had media blasting Knicks for trading away 2 starter level NBA players, one being a young star, for a bust in DSJ and 2 complete unknown commodities of first-round picks.

Boy were they wrong. Courtesy of the BenchWarmerPost via Twitter, the chart above shows just all the fruits of the Porzingis trade. We will dive into the rest of these transactions as we proceed with the article, but this KP trade isn’t some cut and dry loss for the Knicks. That trade has opened a plethora of opportunities that the Knicks have capitalized on and is the main reason why they are in the position they are currently in.