Report: ‘Shocked’ teams did not know Kristaps Porzingis was available
The New York Knicks appear to have engaged in a fairly rushed process to trade star forward Kristaps Porzingis.
According to Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated, rival teams have made it quite clear that they were “shocked” that Porzingis was available, and it appears that few teams were really able to reach out to the Knicks before the big man was dealt to the Dallas Mavericks.
Porzingis fallout: Some bewilderment coming from several teams who were shocked Porzingis was available. Becoming very clear the Knicks did little in the way of league-wide canvassing for offers before moving KP to Dallas.
— Chris Mannix (@SIChrisMannix) February 2, 2019
Mavs deal could ultimately end up being a good deal — a great one, if free agency breaks the Knicks way and those draft picks prove useful. But rival executives have wondered what the urgency was.
— Chris Mannix (@SIChrisMannix) February 2, 2019
In other words, the Knicks liked Dallas’s deal and, for better or worse, took it immediately instead of checking around the league to see if they could find something better. There could be a lot of reasons for this — maybe Porzingis had serious issues with the Knicks and they just wanted him gone — but it’s still odd. They weren’t right up against the trade deadline and could have tried to incite some sort of bidding war.
