It was all so very Shark Tank.
Mark Cuban apparently had made his offer, and he had convinced the New York Knicks that the deal wasn’t going to stay on the table much longer.
A bluff, perhaps. But the Mavericks owner does the same thing on TV all the time.
I’m having a hard time otherwise explaining why, if the Knicks had decided to trade their franchise cornerstone, Kristaps Porzingis, they chose to do it Thursday afternoon, stunningly, without so much as a brief blurb on Craigslist.
Think LeBron and the Lakers might have been interested if they knew Porzingis was available? What about the Pelicans, who could have sent Anthony Davis in return?
The NBA trade deadline is next Thursday, Feb. 7. How did Cuban pull the gangster move of making the Knicks hand over their wallet one week early?
To hear the New York-based writers tell it, during a midday meeting Thursday with team president Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry, Porzingis and his adviser-brother Janis “expressed concern” with the direction of the Knicks franchise.
Hours, maybe minutes, later, reports of the trade came down.
I didn’t realize the Knicks had a drive-thru window.
Things just don’t happen that fast in the NBA, where it takes two days just to read the salary cap rules. Seven players were involved in the trade, and the contract arithmetic alone should have taken all night.
And yet, Cuban, Donnie Nelson and the Knicks people managed to keep their preliminary talks quiet, even from Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA’s version of WikiLeaks.
There was one small and curious item, maybe a coincidence, maybe not. On the Mavericks’ website, our dear friend Dwain Price posted a short story in which coach Rick Carlisle, out of the blue, injected a few words of praise for GM Nelson.
Quoting Dwain’s story:
Rick Carlisle was discussing draft picks and the team being lucky Wednesday night when the Dallas Mavericks coach suddenly got into a dissertation about general manager Donnie Nelson and his impact on European players flocking to the NBA.
“Donnie Nelson has done a great job here,” Carlisle said. “He’s the guy that brought (Dirk) Nowitzki over here (from Germany) 21 years ago and recognized (Slovenia’s Luka) Doncic.”
Hmm. A sudden dissertation about Donnie? Was Carlisle being sly?
The Mavericks received Porzingis, Tim Hardaway Jr., Courtney Lee and Trey Burke. In return, the Knicks are getting Dennis Smith Jr., DeAndre Jordan, Wes Matthews and two future first-round picks.
Knicks fans and the New York media swiftly howled. The Knicks passed on drafting Smith in the first round two years ago. Jordan and Matthews each have expiring contracts.
In other words, New York will be shedding a whole lot of payroll and a corresponding number of fans, who had been told for three years that Porzingis is the foundation of the franchise.
As the seldom-understated New York Post put it in a headline, “There is only one way Knicks aren’t colossal idiots in Porzingis trade.” (That one way: score big in free agency this summer).
True, Porzingis is still recovering from knee surgery that he underwent 12 months ago. He hasn’t played yet this season and may not until next year.
There could be merit, of course, in sitting out. As Mavericks fans learned last season, there is no dignity in tanking. But if the Mavs can somehow crater and earn enough lottery balls to finish in the top five, they get to recover their traded first-round pick from Atlanta, otherwise known as the Zion Williamson sweepstakes.
Maybe the Mavs season didn’t end Thursday, therefore. Maybe Porzingis will get to wear a Dallas uniform in a few weeks, and Burke will be the new point guard and Hardaway will be the 20-point scorer he’s capable of being.
But why? For the chance to lose to Golden State in the first round of the playoffs?
Before the trade, the New York media was regularly issuing positive reports about Porzingis’ recovery. Now, all of a sudden, websites are saying “sources” have told them the Knicks had concerns about Porzingis’ health as his career goes forward.
Oh, stop. He has to pass a physical for the trade to be approved.
And while The Athletic “reported” Thursday that KP intends to sign his qualifying offer in the off-season, making him a free agent in 2020, Wojnarowski said on ESPN that wasn’t necessarily true.
There is no NBA franchise more Euro-friendly than the Dallas Mavericks. Nowitzki and Doncic will give Porzingis a welcome unlike any other. If he doesn’t want to play here, it begs the question of where, exactly, does he want to play?
And why would a player coming off a knee injury turn down an expected five-year, $150-million max contract from the Mavs and instead play for the $4.48 million qualifying offer and risk getting hurt again?
Doesn’t make sense. It seems more likely that Knicks “sources” heard the early howls after the trade and tried to stem the din with Kristaps free agent talk.
Cuban is smarter than that.
The draft choices that Dallas will be sending to New York are reported to be its No. 1 (unprotected) in 2021 and No. 1 (protected if top 10) in 2023.
If the pairing of Luka and KP go as planned, however, both of those picks will be in the 20s.
For that reason alone it would be misleading to suggest that Cuban has just traded away the team’s future. Porzingis is 23; Doncic is 19. That sounds like a future, even with subtitles.
After the Mavs game in Detroit on Thursday night, Dirk talked about the team’s new acquisition, namely KP’s size, shooting touch and ability to spread the floor.
“He’s a perfect fit for the new NBA,” Nowitzki said.
With a week to spare before the league trade deadline, you have to think putting Kristaps Porzingis on the NBA market would have caused a frenzy.
But Cuban never gave it a chance. Shark week came early.
