Mark Cuban says he would have traded up for Kristaps Porzingis
Mavericks owner says he wanted the 7-3 Knicks big man badly because, well, in part because he's 7-3.
By
Matt Moore
•
2 min read
Now that New York Knicks forward Kristaps Porzingis has set the world -- and especially Knicks fans' love -- aflame with his spectacular start to his rookie season, every single ounce of skepticism about the kid is being erased from existence. Teams are starting to talk about how high they were on him going into the draft.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban went so far as to say the Mavs badly wanted to trade up for the Zinger. From CBS Sports NBA Insider Ken Berger:
"It's funny because everywhere I went [after the draft] and dealt with New York basketball fans, they were like, ‘Oh, man,'" Mavs owner Mark Cuban said. "And I was like, 'No, you don't understand.' We would've traded up in a heartbeat to get that kid. We loved him."
Source: Dirk on Porzingis: 'Comparisons are probably unfair to him' - CBSSports.com.
From the New York Post:
“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.”
Source: Mark Cuban: Mavs were ready to trade up for ‘real deal’ Porzingis | New York Post.
(Note: Porzingis, who is Latvian, speaks Spanish, English and Latvian. He does not speak Russian. However, it would be very funny if Cuban talked trash to the kid in Russian and was perplexed by Porzingis looking at him with a cocked head like he's crazy.)
It's great that the Mavs were so high on him, that they saw his potential. It's a little disappointing that now that Porzingis is good, we have to rush to say that everyone who doubted him was an idiot and it was clear from the get-go that he would be good. Porzingis came out of the draft as a lanky, awkward player with major concerns about his ability to handle himself from a strength perspective inside, whose shot was only really showcased in one workout in LA, and who looked like he might take three or four years to develop. That still made him worth selecting fourth overall by New York, who needed a long-term home run and not a for-sure double.
It's just weird that we have the need to retrofit the narrative to what has happened instead of being able to say that Porzingis looked like a project who happened to put in the time and have the talent to make the most of it and make an incredible leap right out of the box. I'm not saying that's what Cuban has done here. Maybe he really did want to trade up (which would have been near-impossible as the Mavericks had almost nothing left in the trade cupboard after the Rajon Rondo deal.) But it does show how everyone will say they knew about Porzingis, when the reality was a player with a lot of questions about how he'd fare.
He's just answered them all.
