The Morning Win: Your mistake was being optimistic about the New York Knicks
Didn't we almost have it all?
No, not even close.
The New York Knicks stunned the basketball world on Thursday by trading away Kristaps Porzingis -- not to mention their current leading scorer, Tim Hardaway Jr. -- to the Dallas Mavericks for some expiring contracts that should give them the salary-cap room to chase big-name free agents in the upcoming offseason.
And hey! Maybe the Knicks will sign Kevin Durant and another top star this summer, and maybe their league-worst record to date will pay off in the form of Zion Williamson. And maybe the Porzingis deal will blow up in the Mavericks' faces when he signs a qualifying offer and bails in free agency after one year.
But, well, c'mon. How do you think this ends? The Knicks had a once-in-a-lifetime talent in Porzingis, a 7'3" "unicorn" with impossible range and tons of Euro swagger, a recognizable burgeoning superstar that seemed prime to become the next face of their franchise. They sold their fans on this woeful season under the assumption that the lanky Latvian would be back from his ACL tear drilling threes and blocking shots next year, then failed to keep Porzingis happy and capitulated to trading him when he wasn't.
They now send him packing for a wing and a prayer -- or a guard and a prayer, more accurately -- with absolutely no guarantee they'll win the draft lottery and seemingly no guarantee they'll be able to lure Durant. Why would Kevin Durant want to sign with the Knicks, a club that couldn't keep Porzingis invested in their plans to build around him despite all the prior indications that he wanted to help turn the moribund franchise around? Why would the likes of Kyrie Irving want to follow him?
No one should ever opt-in to the headache that comes along with putting faith in the Knicks. That burden is only for Knicks fans to bear.
Thursday's big winner
It's Kristaps Porzingis. He gets to go play with Luka Doncic and for an organization that has demonstrated the capacity to get out of its own way, which will be a new experience for him. Congrats to Porzingis for his successful escape from the Knicks. I will never forget that time I saw him in a parking garage in Midtown, and noted that he was so very, very tall.
Quick hits
- The Patriots are playing in their ninth Super Bowl since 2001, which is incredible. Nick Schwartz looked at the longest Super Bowl droughts, a rare NFL misery index in which the Jets are not quite at the top but only third from the top. People spend a lot of time talking about long-suffering sports cities based on places where teams never win championships, but it is this author's firm belief that there is not enough focus on long-suffering sports fans who chose wrong in cities with multiple franchises in each sport. Did you know that if, say, you grew up in the New York area and became conscious of sports in 1987, and you picked the Mets, Jets, Knicks and Islanders as your teams, then you'd still never know the glory of seeing your squad win a title? I knew.
- Hockey gold medalist Kendall Coyne Schofield released a statement clarifying an awkward moment between her and broadcaster Pierre Maguire in the booth earlier this week, noting that she has known Maguire for years and did not believe he was questioning her hockey knowledge.
- Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey went back and read criticisms from his NFL Draft profile. No single sporting event prompts more uninformed takes than the NFL Draft. Yes, teams make bad picks, but it's astonishing to me that so many people can feel so certain they know more than the billion-dollar NFL teams employing armies of full-time talent evaluators based on a couple clips they saw on YouTube.
- Charles Curtis and Steven Ruiz looked at some of the best Super Bowl prop bets. The safest pick? Over on 2.5 mentions of "Gronk" from the broadcast booth. Who set that over-under?
This day in dumb sports
In one of the most emphatic doinks in sports history, tennis player Nicolas Mahut drilled his own doubles partner with a 124-mph serve on this day in 2015.