Count Knicks forward Kristaps Porzingis among those clamoring to see more minutes allotted for second-year center Willy Hernangomez. The 23-year-old has been called a building block by the team, Marc Berman of the New York Post writes, but has received just four minutes of action and a DNP-CD through two games this season.
Porzingis acknowledged the logjam in New York’s frontcourt but believes that Hernangomez is a talented player worthy of a spot in the Knicks’ rotation.
“He deserves it. But we have a lot of big guys on the floor and I understand everybody’s fighting for those minutes. And not everybody is going to get what they deserve,” Porzingis, who leads the club with 36.5 minutes per game, said.
There’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- A slimmed down Jahlil Okafor made his season debut for the Sixers on Saturday and Brian Seltzer of the team’s official site writes that the big man performed admirably. A 20-pound lighter Okafor posted 10 points and nine boards in his first game of the year. “He shows why he was the third player chosen [in 2015],” head coach Brett Brown said. “[Because] he really can score.”
- The league has fined Celtics guard Kyrie Irving $25K for using inappropriate language with a fan, the league announced in an official press release Sunday.
- It’ll take a while for Raptors rookie OG Anunoby to acclimate to an NBA schedule, Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun writes. Fortunately, a handful of teammates have weighed in with some helpful (and foreboding) advice.
They need to give Jahlil minutes. He seems like a totally different player this year, for the better.
I wonder if a trade of Irving for Simmons or Embiid ever had legs. I’ve never heard talk of that direction.
Bear in mind Irving’s shortlist had/has little impact– Boston was not on it– and Philly is basically a home team with young talent that he could be the leader of, fitting what he wanted. Also the shortlist was not even known of until about a month after the draft, June 22nd, although Irving’s desire to leave was already known by the Cavs FO but not acted upon (unfortunately, because the shortlist hurt his trade value). Any Sixer “due diligence” communication with Irving would find a positive reaction, so it would be a straight value trade.
**The draft was June 22.
I doubt Simmons or Embiid were brought up at all cause if they were, the Cavs probably would’ve accepted immediately. It’s more likely a combination of Fultz and Saric or Cov plus the LAL/SAC pick would’ve been talked about.
Believe it. Philly has/had a lot of trade resources including taking salary, but the the boss wanted a star in return. (Boss = Gilbert OR James)
Irving for both Philly #1s and more or less backups would have worked for me (Covington, Holmes or Okafor, Bayless or Mcconnell), with intention to trade the 2 #1s and salary (Smith, TT, Shump) for a star. Or just Vucevic lol.
It was hard to play matchmaker with Irving and that ×!@#$%& shortlist without draft picks as an intermediary.
I just can’t make heads or tales of the current Cavs roster… It’s probably a bit much for Lue also!