The Knicks are banking on David Fizdale having a strong relationship with star player Kristaps Porzingis to have any chance at the team being successful, but Fizdale already jokes that the 22-year old will get sick of him-- fast.
Fizdale is going to visit Porzingis in Latvia soon and says he has so many things he wants to show him.
"He's going to get tired of me by two of those days over there," Fizdale said, via Stefan Bondy of NY Daily News. "I have so many things I've broken down and pulled - just stuff Jeff (Hornacek) was already doing from the year before, stuff that was similar, so I can show them, hey, 'I'm going to use you this way or use you that way.'"
Porzingis is in Europe, continuing to rehab the ACL injury that ended his All-Star 2017/18 season.
"At least I'll have visual examples," Fizdale said. "And then I have some clips of guys who played for me and situations I like to play out of and I can use those guys as examples as well."
Fizdale admits that he doesn't have a single, set position for Porzingis because he doesn't want to box him in. He understands the advantage Porzingis can give the Knicks at center but isn't fond of all the wear-and-tear that comes with the position.
"In our conversations I just told him, 'I don't have a position for you. Are you cool with that?'" Fizdale said. "He's like, 'Absolutely.' He doesn't want to be put in a box. I'm not going to put him in a position to fail. I'm not going to throw him in a situation where he's going against some brute out there at center and get beat to death. At the same time our league doesn't really have a lot of those type of guys anymore. He gives me a lot of flexibility to move him to power forward, to center and even some small forward."
Fizdale will hope that his star will be healthy enough to return next season so they can get a start on building their on-court relationship-- as long as his time in Latvia goes well.