Kristaps’ Way: What if the Knicks did not trade their Unicorn?

Welcome to our first Knicktion: Knicks-based fiction. In this first installment, Shwinnypooh and Knicks Illustrated imagine a world where Steve Mills didn’t pull the trigger on Kristaps Porzingis’ trade demand in 2019, setting in motion a chain of events that haunts Knicks fans to this day.

Steve Mills could only look on helplessly as former Knicks Frank Ntilikina and Tim Hardaway Jr. rained threes from the perimeter, and Dallas’ newly-minted All-Star power forward, Julius Randle, put New York’s own franchise big man, Kristaps Porzingis, in the torture chamber. 

After three-plus seasons as President of Basketball Operations of the New York Knicks, the sum total of his disastrous decision-making was laid bare at the hands of the brilliant Dallas Mavericks. The trajectory of both teams couldn’t be more different, but their fates are tied together after their blockbuster trade two years ago.

Since that trade, Dallas has soared to contention in the competitive West with the cap flexibility and an asset stash to aggressively upgrade the roster moving forward. Meanwhile, New York has plummeted to the gutter of the lowly East. Last night’s loss dropped the Knicks to 15-34, obliterating all hope of relevance in yet another year’s playoff picture.

But the Dallas trade was only one in a series of flagrantly foul choices made by the New York front office. To go from bad to even worse never boils down to just one moment, no matter how consequential. It’s always more complex than that. So how did the most valuable franchise in the NBA turn the page to another chapter of misery?

Just how did it get this bad?

Perhaps the latest torrent of misfortune began with Phil Jackson’s dismissal in the summer of 2017, when current president Steve Mills was put in the driver’s seat by owner James Dolan. The Zen Master’s exile portended a slew of questionable decisions from his replacement, including offering role player Tim Hardaway Jr. a bloated contract, a deal that began to age poorly the moment it was signed. 

But no single decision made by Mills compares in calamity to the decision to sign Kristaps Porzingis to a maximum contract in the summer of 2019.

Unlike the Tim Hardaway Jr. contract, this one seemed like a no-brainer. Kristaps Porzingis was known as “The Unicorn”: a 7-foot-3 stretch power forward who could eat your lunch at the rim and also splash a shot from the logo. With his rare intersection of unusual skills, Porzingis was surely the future of the franchise… or so the league thought.

Delve a little deeper into the details and you will find yourself faced with the same red flags Steve Mills was faced with before extending a max contract offer to his star: Kristaps Porzingis was still rehabbing an ACL tear and hadn’t played a game in a year and a half (in fact, Kristaps had never played a full season in his short career, his production and health tapering off by January during each of his three active seasons); Porzingis’ growing list of lower body injuries was as long as he is tall; but perhaps most glaring of all was Kristaps’ open discontent with the organization, discontent he voiced both publicly (on his social media pages) and privately, culminating in his trade request in the winter of 2019.

Kristaps’ request to be dealt to one of a preferred list of teams was an inflection point for the franchise. Would Mills honor the request? There were a handful of willing trade partners, including the Dallas Mavericks, who offered a package for Kristaps headlined by cap space and first round picks. 

A trade with the Mavericks would have meant a clean slate to remake the roster the way Mills saw fit: perhaps to chase dreams of pairing up two of the marquee free agents available that summer — such as Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving — or perhaps just to go into the future without a gargantuan financial commitment to a surly, oft-injured star who had not yet led the franchise to a single winning season.

In the end, Mills took what was perceived to be the sensible, if risky, action: he made amends with the disgruntled power forward. The tense meeting in Mills’ office in January 2019 that began with a trade request ended with Mills’ acquiescence to a list of Kristaps’ other demands, chief of which was the onboarding of Kristaps’ brother, Janis Porzingis, to a role within the Knicks organization (Executive Vice President of Basketball Relations).

New EVP of the Knicks Janis Porzingis (left), star Kristaps (center), and POBO Steve Mills (right) after Porzingis inked his $150 million-plus max extension.

The Knicks’ braintrust didn’t stop there in efforts to mend fences with Porzingis. Besides the desire to garner a commitment for a fully guaranteed max contract from Mills, one which sources say he received at the meeting, Porzingis also expressed concerns about the Knicks’ ability to build a contender around him. Heading into an unprecedented free agent market, with nearly half the league in the talent pool, the Knicks were still saddled with the aforementioned Hardaway Jr. contract. At Kristaps’ and Janis’ urging, Mills and Perry were aggressive in clearing space before the deadline was over.

They went back to the Mavericks, only this time rather than discussing trading Porzingis, they looked to them purely for cap relief. Ultimately, a deal was struck. The Knicks would trade Tim Hardaway Jr. and Frank Ntilikina to Dallas for the expiring contract of DeAndre Jordan and Dennis Smith Jr. To grease the wheels, the Knicks took the chance of risking future draft capital, dealing away a 2020 unprotected first round pick, and the right to swap 2021 firsts.

The trade did little to arrest the team’s free-fall during the 2018-19 campaign as they finished 17-65, the worst record in the league. It did, however, raise expectations that the team would be able to make a meaningful splash in free agency. Those expectations were raised even further when James Dolan appeared on ESPN’s The Michael Kay Show claiming that based on their intel from agents, the team expected to have a very successful free agency period.

With the space to sign a max superstar in a market in which Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler, and Kemba Walker were all free agents, fans were dreaming big.

The unbridled optimism lasted until the night of the draft lottery. With former Knicks No. 1 pick Patrick Ewing called into service one more time as the team’s designated representative, hopes were high that lady luck would favor the Knicks. The prize was Zion Williamson, a physical specimen who routinely defied gravity and physics during a season full of highlights at Duke.

However, the stars did not align. The Knicks — who entered the night with the top lottery odds — fell to the third pick, with New Orleans and Memphis jumping up to grab the top two spots.

Come draft night, the Knicks selected Zion’s Duke teammate, RJ Barrett. Once the consensus No. 1 prospect in the country, he’d been overshadowed by Williamson during their college season. Still, the do-everything wing was considered an elite prospect in his own right, and with a roster bereft of solutions and littered with needs, Barrett was a welcome addition.

And for however important the draft was, New York’s success or failure moving forward was always going to hinge on their free agent fortunes. Armed with space for one max in a superstar-rich talent pool and the allure of playing at Madison Square Garden alongside the Unicorn, it was assumed they would undoubtedly land one of the whales in the market, the most notable candidate being Kevin Durant.

There had been rumblings all season that Durant had his eyes set on New York. Those rumors went into overdrive following the Knicks’ move to clear cap space at the trade deadline. The connections between Durant and the organization loomed large as well. GM Scott Perry had been with the Seattle Supersonics’ front office when Durant was selected. Allonzo Trier, their prized undrafted rookie, had a close relationship with KD. Durant’s business partner and close friend Rich Kleiman is a lifelong Knicks fan with the stated goal of running the team one day. New York had even added one of his favorite teammates, Royal Ivey, to the coaching staff, and acquired DeAndre Jordan, another close friend of Durant’s, in the deadline deal with Dallas.

They were right, at least in part. Durant’s eyes certainly were set on The Big Apple, but he looked beyond the bright lights of Broadway, and settled on teaming up with good friend Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn with the Nets. To add insult to injury, Jordan swapped boroughs to team up with them too.

As the other stars in free agency settled on alternative destinations, the Knicks were forced to scramble to save face. With little confidence in Dennis Smith Jr.’s ability to run an offense, they added veteran point guard Ricky Rubio on a three-year, $51 million deal, a favorite of Porzingis that Janis had earmarked as a necessary free agent target. They also looked to beef up the frontcourt, with Marcus Morris and Bobby Portis both signing one-year, $15 million contracts.

While they failed to add star power, Mills felt confident that the additions they made would push the team into playoff contention. Furthermore, he was pleased with the level of cap flexibility they had maintained.

Meanwhile, Julius Randle signed a three-year, $63 million dollar contract with his hometown Dallas Mavericks to join Hardaway and Ntilikina in backing up budding superstar Luka Doncic. In his second year with the Mavericks, Randle blossomed into an All-Star and a worthy second banana on the contending Dallas team. By contrast, the road ahead for Kristaps and the Knicks has been much more bleak.

The New York Knicks were set to begin their 2019-2020 campaign with a starting five of Ricky Rubio, RJ Barrett, Marcus Morris, Mitchell Robinson, and Kristaps Porzingis. However, Porzingis missed the first three games of the season due to a dislocated finger sustained in a bar fight in his hometown of Riga, Latvia.

Once Kristaps joined the lineup, however, it was clear from the start that the roster construction was deeply flawed. Though the team had ample rim protection from their two big men, New York struggled to defend the perimeter. Offensively, they lacked cohesion and their spacing was abysmal, with both RJ Barrett and Ricky Rubio unable to provide consistent 3-point shooting. 

The team’s first flashpoint came early in the season when they hosted the Dallas Mavericks and faced ex-Knicks Ntilikina and Hardaway Jr. It was apparent the Knicks alumni were thirsty for a revenge game against their former team. 

Defensively, Ntilikina preyed on Pozingis’ high center of gravity, throwing him off balance and forcing turnovers that led to fast break threes from Hardaway and dunks from Randle. Luka, for his part, hammered the Knicks with an almost-banal 38-point triple-double.

Kristaps put up a valiant effort on both ends of the floor, scoring 28 points and logging five blocks, but he was ultimately stymied on a key defensive possession by the 6-foot-6 Ntilikina, who drove to basket and posterized the 7-foot-3 Porzingis with a game-winning dunk. 

Dallas guard Frank Ntilikina got his revenge in his first matchup against his former team, posterizing Porzingis for a game-winning dunk.

The Knicks fell to 2-7, and Kristaps exited to a cacophony of boos from the Garden faithful on his way to the tunnel. Some may have suggested allowing the new group some time to gel and come together; Mills thought it was clear that immediate, drastic action was required to fix the team’s chemistry issues and urged returning coach David Fizdale to shake things up.

Fizdale sought to remedy the situation by employing unconventional lineups which empowering Porzingis to handle the ball. While it was clear from the mounting losses and Kristaps’ low assist rate that the “Point Porzingis” experiment was ill-conceived, Fizdale stuck to his guns, comparing his star to other ball-handling big men such as Giannis Antetokoumnpo and Ben Simmons.

“We have a 7-foot-3 beast on the roster,” said Fizdale after a particularly rough loss to the Bulls, during which Porzingis turned the ball over seven times. “If the offense isn’t running through him, we’re doing him a disservice.”

By the time the February trade deadline rolled around, the Knicks had a 20-36 record, leaving them ninth in the East. Kristaps was experiencing his yearly wane in productivity. Mills knew he needed to change things up on his clunky roster, and that his job hung in the balance: he needed to find a second star to share the load with the exhausted Latvian.

"You've got Kyrie and Durant doing their thing a borough over, so Dolan's breathing down your neck, because that was supposed to be happening in Manhattan," a source familiar with Mills' thinking said. "Jim wants to win, and he wants to own the local media market, but he's seeing all these NetsDaily tweets about how much ground Brooklyn is making up and he flies off the handle. Steve needed to make a major splash to save his job."

The RJ Barrett for D’Angelo Russell trade was a controversial one, even at the time. Though Barrett had not yet proven that he could meaningfully contribute to winning, he had won the hearts of many fans with his dogged poise on the basketball court. Yet Mills ultimately viewed Golden State’s D’Angelo Russell as the scoring point guard the Knicks lacked, and was in competition with the Minnesota Timberwolves to trade for him.

The Wolves, desperate to trade for a second star to pair with their own unhappy big-man,  Karl-Anthony Towns, were further motivated to trade for D’Angelo because of his longtime friendship with Towns.

“Once Minnesota increased their offer to two future firsts, Golden State was able to gouge the Knicks, saying RJ had to be in the deal or it was a non-starter,” said a source familiar with the trade discussions. “Mills haggled for a bit, but eventually gave in. He kept citing D’Angelo’s age and All-Star pedigree. He said that RJ was a sacrificial lamb you sometimes need when you’re going for a chip.”

Sources also indicate the Latvian and Barrett weren't fond of each other. "RJ was the third pick and the Knicks made a push to promote him as the next big thing. That didn't sit well with Kristaps, and he gave RJ the cold shoulder from day one. Their personalities just never meshed."

That settled it: D’Angelo would return to New York City a mere half-season after being shipped out by the Brooklyn Nets, and RJ Barrett, Bobby Portis, and Mitchell Robinson, along with a top-1 protected Knicks 2022 first round pick all landed in Golden State.

“Mitch was a throw-in,” the same source said.

The Knicks’ trade for D’Angelo Russell set Knicks Twitter ablaze.

“I’m excited to get D-Lo on the court,” said Fizdale after the blockbuster deal. “We’re getting a guy who can space the floor and play off-ball with Porzingis in that first unit, and really be the leader when Kristaps is on the bench.”

As fate would have it, however, rarely have the two been able to share the court. The duo only played a total of 10 games together (going 4-6) last season, as the coronavirus pandemic forced the league into a shutdown. 

Still, the Knicks received an invitation to participate in the summer bubble after finishing the pandemic-shortened season with a 24-40 record. However, their bubble journey proved short-lived and costly, with Kristaps adding another lower-body injury to his ever-growing list — a meniscus tear sustained in the ramp-up to play.

With just Russell leading the Knicks against the league’s upper crust, they went winless in nine games in the bubble. They packed their bags after an exhausting and demoralizing four-and-a-half weeks at The Grand Floridian.

Still, with the chance to bolster the roster and eventually pair D-Lo and Porzingis after Kristaps’ recovery, the Mills administration emerged confident about the impending offseason.

The Knicks wasted little time in free agency adding to the roster: Morris, a Mills favorite, was brought back on a four-year, $64 million deal, while Davis Bertans, Porzingis' Latvian countryman, was signed to a four-year, $70 million contract, staving off stiff competition from the Washington Wizards.

The front office was reluctant to offer Bertans such a rich deal, according to a team source. "But Kristaps was adamant that they bring on his former Team Latvia teammate. Bertans knew it, and he leveraged the Knicks to get a payday."

One upside of landing Bertans for the Mills administration was that it created a willingness on Porzingis' part to play as a full-time 5, a role which he previously refused; Bertans could also theoretically serve as a decent facsimile of his All-Star counterpart while Kristaps spent the early part of the season rehabbing his meniscus tear.

Though the Knicks were unable to make a first round selection with Dallas holding their lottery pick (Dallas selected Rookie of the Year candidate Tyrese Haliburton, a sweet-shooting, do-everything playmaker, and perfect complement to Luka), Fizdale, Mills, and the Porzingises were bullish about what the club could achieve this season. 

Their hopes have proved misplaced.

The team got off to a 4-9 start, including losing by double digits in their first three games to Indiana, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. Russell's numbers were gaudy, but the impact didn't match up. Even more concerning were Bertans' struggles from the perimeter, as he stumbled trying to find his bearings in New York.

D’Angelo Russell and the Porzingis-less Knicks got off to a slow start in 2020-21.

Porzingis returned from rehab, and over the next 10 games the Knicks seemed to find their footing, grinding to a 5-5 record — bringing them to 9-14 just over a quarter of the way through the season. Excitement abounded, but, as it always seems with this star-crossed franchise, disaster was right around the corner.

D-Lo suffered an injury to his quad and has since missed the team's last 24 games. In his absence, the Bertans/Porzingis duo have struggled even more to execute even basic offensive sets, while the already-porous defense remains just as problematic.

Often, it's clear that the players aren't sure what a given scheme calls for. It's not just been a question of effort or desire (although those issues have been apparent at times as well), but a lack of guidance from their head coach. "There’s no consistency," a veteran player on the team told The Strickland. Indeed, oft-ridiculed images of David Fizdale’s clipboard frequently surface online bearing not strategies but slogans such as “TOGETHER,” “BE DOGS,” and “BUILT DIFFERENT.”

"One day we're playing zone the whole game, and the next we're switching everything. The NBA is hard enough when you know what you're doing, but when everybody's playing catch-up you're [expletive] before the game even starts. After a while, guys can't stay locked in because they're not even sure where they’re supposed to be. There’s no vocal leader calling out the sets, because KP is as lost as anyone else. And that's without even touching on the offense."

Shouldering the full burden of the team in D’Angelo’s absence, Kristaps has noticeably struggled with the speed and intensity of play. He is frequently hunted by opposing offenses. A low point came when he matched up with Aleksej Pokusevski, a rookie and fellow seven-footer, who easily beat him off the dribble.

“He’s just not what he used to be as a defender,” one pro scout told The Strickland. “I’m not sure if it’s injuries, or effort, or both, but he’s a liability out there. You're getting beat off the dribble by some dude who was playing plumbers in Greece last year? Come on. It looks like he's moving in quicksand sometimes.”

Meanwhile, others in the Knicks organization feel that it's a matter of time before their star’s next injury.

With years of plans bearing rotten fruit and poor product out on the floor, the Mills front office began to panic. 

“They put Fiz in the hot seat,” one source close to the team said. “Or they tried to. But KP wouldn’t have it. Fiz and KP are still close.”

With losses piling up, and the jettisoned RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson flourishing in their roles with Golden State, “Sell The Team” chants began to break out in the Garden at least once per game, and Mills felt ownership breathing down his neck.

Unable to fire his coach, he looked to the trade market for help and improvements, but could find no meaningful return for Bertans or anyone else.

“He tried to find value for pretty much everyone on the roster,” one rival team executive said. “But we all saw what he saw: you get junk in return for junk.

Rival team sources also indicate that he inquired about trade packages for both Russell and Porzingis.

“D’Angelo was a non-starter, being injured,” said the rival executive. “And regarding Porzingis, it’s clear they’ve lost faith in him. Why should we have faith in him, then?”

The league-altering 2021 trade deadline came and went. The Knicks stood pat, without a single trade made. 

A little over two years after Porzingis’ trade request, and the rejection of the Dallas Mavericks’ reported trade offer of two first round picks and matching expiring salary, the Knicks could not find a deal that would net them a single first round pick for their star player without taking on bad long-term salary in return.

The team faces a future without their own first round picks in the next two drafts, without cap space, and without a vision for sustainable success. 

Their one-time All-Star player has still not yet led the team to a winning season.

“We’ll keep marching forward,” David Fizdale said after the 120-101 rout of his Knicks team by the Mavericks, a team still largely populated by former Knicks players. “We love our team.” 

Hopefully Knicks fans feel the same way, because they’re stuck with it.