New York Knicks: Kristaps Porzingis the next Shawn Bradley?

New York Knicks President, Phil Jackson, certainly has a flair for the dramatics. His latest comments will do nothing to ease the tension of New Yorkers who were upset pissed off with the Knicks after they chose Kristaps Porzingis with the fourth overall pick of the 2015 NBA Draft.

By now, the video of the young fan crying after the Knicks made their selection should be firmly etched in your mind. If not, here it is.

While Porzingis wasn’t the popular pick, he did turn in a decent performance during the Summer League. In fact, he won himself some fans during the few games in which he saw some action.

Despite that, there are still those individuals who are not completely sold on the young Latvian. Well, wait until they read Jackson’s latest remarks.

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Charley Rosen, a former assistant under Jackson, has written a series of articles (for ESPN) about the time he spent with Jackson. Rosen spent one day each month (during Jackson’s first year as a Knicks executive) with Jackson.

One of the highlights of Rosen and Jackson’s conversations concerned the NBA Draft and the Knicks making the most polarizing choice this year.

“When we wound up with the fourth pick, I was hemming and hawing about how to choose,” said Jackson to Charley Rosen. “I knew there were several outstanding prospects that would be available, but I was focused on getting a big man. My decision was essentially made when Clarence Gaines, my primary adviser and a super scout, told me there was a game tape I had to watch. This turned out to be a Spanish League contest between [Baloncesto] Sevilla and a team from Barcelona, a game that Sevilla had to win to avoid being downgraded from Division I to Division II status.”

Jackson saw what Kristaps Porzingis brought to the table and made his decision to draft the man known as “KP.”

Jackson stated that he liked what he saw in the youngster, particularly that he was able to hold his own in the Spanish League.

“Although the competition in the Spanish League is more physical, more consistent and more advanced than even the best D-I college teams over here, KP more than held his own,” said Jackson.

As a Knicks fan, if you stopped reading after you read that, you probably walked away feeling better about the pick. However, if you kept reading, you were probably horrified at what came next.

Jackson unintentionally (or intentionally if he was trying to dial down any expectations that come along with making a high draft pick) compared Porzingis to former first-round pick, Shawn Bradley.

You know, the Shawn Bradley associated with the stats below.

Season	Tm	G	GS	MP	FG%	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	PTS
1993-94	PHI	49	45	28.3	.409	.607	2.0	4.2	6.2	2.0	0.9	3.0	10.3
1994-95	PHI	82	59	28.8	.455	.638	3.0	5.1	8.0	0.6	0.7	3.3	9.5
1995-96	TOT	79	68	29.5	.443	.687	2.8	5.3	8.1	0.8	0.6	3.6	11.9
1996-97	TOT	73	70	31.3	.449	.654	3.0	5.3	8.4	0.7	0.5	3.4	13.2
1997-98	DAL	64	46	28.5	.422	.722	2.6	5.5	8.1	0.9	0.8	3.3	11.4
1998-99	DAL	49	33	26.4	.480	.748	2.7	5.3	8.0	0.8	0.7	3.2	8.6
1999-00	DAL	77	54	24.7	.479	.765	2.1	4.4	6.5	0.8	0.9	2.5	8.4
2000-01	DAL	82	35	24.4	.490	.787	2.0	5.5	7.4	0.5	0.4	2.8	7.1
2001-02	DAL	53	16	14.3	.479	.922	1.0	2.3	3.3	0.4	0.5	1.2	4.1
2002-03	DAL	81	39	21.4	.536	.806	1.9	4.0	5.9	0.7	0.8	2.1	6.7
2003-04	DAL	66	5	11.7	.473	.837	1.1	1.5	2.6	0.3	0.5	1.1	3.3
2004-05	DAL	77	14	11.5	.452	.683	0.9	1.9	2.8	0.2	0.3	0.8	2.7
Career		832	484	23.5	.457	.716	2.1	4.2	6.3	0.7	0.6	2.5	8.1
9 seasons	DAL	582	274	21.0	.471	.762	1.8	3.9	5.7	0.6	0.6	2.1	7.0
3 seasons	PHI	143	115	28.6	.436	.633	2.6	4.9	7.5	1.1	0.7	3.2	9.7
2 seasons	NJN	107	95	30.1	.441	.673	2.9	5.2	8.0	0.7	0.6	3.8	12.3

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/19/2015.

“Like Shawn Bradley, who was nevertheless a pretty good player, KP might almost be too tall for the game,” said Jackson. “What I mean is that his core strength might never be good enough, and that he might not be able to get low enough to get himself into prime defensive position to body power rebounders or drivers.”

Knicks fans will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2…

There is no way that fans are going to take this well. Jackson has to know that. Perhaps this is just another method to his madness. Perhaps this pick will pay dividends. Or perhaps he is preparing us for an inevitable (as he sees it) failure.

We’ll find out soon enough.

Next: Who is the greatest Knicks' PG of all-time?

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