NEW YORK _ Kristaps Porzingis arrived in New York as a 20-year-old from Latvia, possessing the ability to speak four languages and having been trained for this moment from the time he was a middle- schooler. He played only 186 games for the Knicks before it came to a sudden end Thursday, but he saw things in that time that no amount of schooling could have prepared him to face.
The second star behind Carmelo Anthony early in his career, he watched as Anthony and Phil Jackson engaged in an odd battle of the franchise faces, with team president Jackson trying to push Anthony out of town. Then he was just a long 3-point shot away from the spot in the stands where Knicks legend Charles Oakley was being dragged out of Madison Square Garden by security.
So if his departure came suddenly and with a spin from the organization depicting him as a disgruntled employee as he left, it couldn't have come as a surprise. And maybe that's why when he saw his name in trade talks and was brought in to sit with team executives Steve Mills and Scott Perry on Thursday, he was willing to take the push out the door with little resistance.
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