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J.J. Barea sparks Mavericks win; Kristaps Porzingis highly critical of his own ‘awful’ performance
By Saad Yousuf Nov 7, 2019
6
When J.J. Barea woke up Wednesday morning, he had yet to step on the court during regulation time through six games this season. There were no whispers that this game, Wednesday night against the Orlando Magic, was going to change that. There was no indication from the coaching staff and no injuries the team was dealing with that would lead one to believe Rick Carlisle was going to turn to a 35-year-old guard coming off an Achilles rupture.
Regardless, Barea arrived at the Mavericks practice facility by himself at 10 a.m. for a workout. The Mavericks rarely do morning shootarounds anymore; Barea would need to take any early work upon himself. For whatever reason, Barea was feeling it. He shot from everywhere on the floor, practiced his pick-and-roll game, got some conditioning in and played some one-on-one. He did what he usually does and then some, acknowledging that it was “a little bit extra than I usually do.”
“I had a big workout this morning. I went all out,” Barea said. “I was playing with my kids and my dog in my house, doing all types of stuff.”
The day went on like any regular game day and Barea was lingering around the locker room a little over an hour before game time when the media was allowed in. He even joked before the game he wouldn’t play. A couple of media members, joking with him before the game, asked for the inside scoop for when he would return to the court.
“I’ve got to keep getting better,” Barea said.
He laughed at the idea that he could scoop himself, tweeting something like, “BREAKING: J.J. Barea to make season debut tonight.” But in truth, he didn’t know it would be Wednesday night.
The Mavericks got off to a very sloppy start against a Magic team that was 0-3 on the road coming in, playing the second game of a back-to-back. With 7:36 left in the first half, Aaron Gordon dunked to give Orlando a 38-30 lead, prompting the Mavericks to call a timeout in search of answers.
In came Barea.
“The way we started, low energy, things weren’t going our way, I was like, ‘Maybe there’s a chance they might throw me in there,’” Barea said. “One of the assistant coaches was like, ‘Are you ready?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready,’ so I went and did a couple of up-and-downs (to get loose) and got ready.”
Barea wasn’t just providing lip service in saying he was ready to get in the game. Forty seconds in, he assisted Luka Doncic on a bucket to close the deficit to 40-34. Two minutes later, an alley-oop to Dwight Powell. Twenty-five seconds after that, a third assist to Powell for a shot that brought the Mavericks to within three points.
“First of all, he’s my favorite player, so that’s just awesome for him to be out there,” Powell said. “I know how hard he’s worked, how much he’s sacrificed and I know how good of a teammate he’s been through this recovery process.
“Obviously, everybody wants to play. At the end of the day, that’s why we work every day on our game, is to be out there contributing. He hasn’t had the opportunity to do so yet but that has not in any way affected the way in which he supports his teammates, his energy on the bench, his influence in practice or how he prepares for every single game. For us, there was no surprise at all that when he came into the game, he was a spark plug and he energized us.”
After the Magic went on a 4-0 run in the next minute, Barea stopped dishing the ball and took matters into his own hands. First, a couple of free throws.
“I was aggressive, hit Dwight on a couple of passes early and then I got going with those free throws,” Barea said.
Thirty-eight seconds later though, Barea really got the American Airlines Center crowd going. Right in front of a few soldiers sitting courtside on Seats for Soldiers night, Barea hit a 3-point bank shot.
“The bank shot was awesome,” Barea said. “As soon as I hit the bank shot, I was like, ‘I’m hot. I’m hot right now.’”
Barea came back a minute later with another 3-pointer and then 34 seconds later, he hit a third triple to bring the Mavericks to within two, which is the deficit they carried into half. After scoring 30 points through the first 16 minutes, the Mavericks scored 24 points in less than eight minutes with Barea on the floor to close the first half.
He opened the second half in the lineup in place of Seth Curry with the rest of the starters. Despite some poor free-throw shooting, the Mavericks went on to win 107-106, thanks to bad fouls and missed shots by the Magic. Doncic was once again good in clutch time and helped close things out, but after the game, he raved about Barea and the way the reserve guard changed the game.
“It was just amazing,” Doncic said. “He’s a vet of this team, he’s one of the leaders. He’s been working hard, even playing all of his life, and he didn’t have a chance this season, so it’s just amazing to see him. I think he won the game for us.”
Whether it was Powell, Doncic, Maxi Kleber, Jalen Brunson or Kristaps Porzingis, the respect Barea’s name demands was obvious in the locker room. Barea hasn’t been out of the rotation because he’s not a capable player; that notion was dispelled Wednesday night. It just has to do with where this franchise is and where it’s going. The Mavericks are led by a 20-year-old and a 24-year-old in Doncic and Porzingis, respectively, and the majority of the roster is filled out with players on the front side of 30.
Barea is the oldest player on the roster at 35, Courtney Lee is close behind at 34 and Boban Marjanovic is the last player above 30 at 31 years old. Look at the minutes those three have played, and it’s not hard to identify that it’s not anything personal. There’s just a youth movement taking place right now.
Carlisle acknowledged as much after the game.
“(Barea and Lee) have both helped us immeasurably with our younger players, competing against them in practice, saying the right things to them during the games,” Carlisle said. “They’ve had a major impact in the games that we’ve won, and I remind them of that every day. They’re both good enough to play. We’re just in a situation right now with our roster, with a young veteran team, where the young guys are getting the first opportunity.
“Tonight is proof that we’ll do anything, at any time, to give us a spark because winning is the most important thing.”
On Wednesday night, the path to a win came through the spark provided by Barea.
The postgame scene was different. Usually, Porzingis is ready to address the media soon after the locker room opens up and the wait for Doncic is longer. Wednesday night, Doncic was at his locker when the media walked in and held court for a couple of minutes while Porzingis was getting treatment.
After a quick chat with Barea, most media members were just waiting around while some left. Some were questioning if talking to Porzingis was even necessary. He had a mediocre-to-bad game and Barea was really the story. However, with Porzingis’ old team, the New York Knicks, in town Friday, there was some New York media on hand so the wait rolled on.
About 30 minutes after the locker room was opened, Porzingis came in ready to take questions after treatment.
Here, I feel the need to add a disclaimer for clarity. Wednesday night marked exactly 21 months since Porzingis suffered a torn ACL. He missed 20 months of NBA game action before the first seven games of this season. By no means do I believe it’s time to write some hypercritical piece on Porzingis about why he isn’t back to his old, All-Star form. It’s going to take time. And while he hasn’t been his old self consistently, he hasn’t really been all bad, either. In fact, just before the Magic game, he was coming off a performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers in which he shot 50 percent from the field and blocked six shots. Earlier this season, he scored 32 points against the Portland Trail Blazers. It’s been there in spurts. Carlisle has also taken responsibility multiple times this season, including Wednesday night when he simply said, “I got to get him better shots.”
Give Porzingis credit, though, for accountability. While many athletes talk about holding themselves to a higher standard than anybody else, Porzingis showed Wednesday night at his locker that he meant it. He spoke for nine minutes, and he initially wasn’t even asked about his struggles but more about the team’s combined sloppy start. But, visibly frustrated, he quickly shifted the attention to his struggles and kept it there for the entire time he spoke.
By Saad Yousuf Nov 7, 2019
When J.J. Barea woke up Wednesday morning, he had yet to step on the court during regulation time through six games this season. There were no whispers that this game, Wednesday night against the Orlando Magic, was going to change that. There was no indication from the coaching staff and no injuries the team was dealing with that would lead one to believe Rick Carlisle was going to turn to a 35-year-old guard coming off an Achilles rupture.
Regardless, Barea arrived at the Mavericks practice facility by himself at 10 a.m. for a workout. The Mavericks rarely do morning shootarounds anymore; Barea would need to take any early work upon himself. For whatever reason, Barea was feeling it. He shot from everywhere on the floor, practiced his pick-and-roll game, got some conditioning in and played some one-on-one. He did what he usually does and then some, acknowledging that it was “a little bit extra than I usually do.”
“I had a big workout this morning. I went all out,” Barea said. “I was playing with my kids and my dog in my house, doing all types of stuff.”
The day went on like any regular game day and Barea was lingering around the locker room a little over an hour before game time when the media was allowed in. He even joked before the game he wouldn’t play. A couple of media members, joking with him before the game, asked for the inside scoop for when he would return to the court.
“I’ve got to keep getting better,” Barea said.
He laughed at the idea that he could scoop himself, tweeting something like, “BREAKING: J.J. Barea to make season debut tonight.” But in truth, he didn’t know it would be Wednesday night.
The Mavericks got off to a very sloppy start against a Magic team that was 0-3 on the road coming in, playing the second game of a back-to-back. With 7:36 left in the first half, Aaron Gordon dunked to give Orlando a 38-30 lead, prompting the Mavericks to call a timeout in search of answers.
In came Barea.
“The way we started, low energy, things weren’t going our way, I was like, ‘Maybe there’s a chance they might throw me in there,’” Barea said. “One of the assistant coaches was like, ‘Are you ready?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready,’ so I went and did a couple of up-and-downs (to get loose) and got ready.”
Barea wasn’t just providing lip service in saying he was ready to get in the game. Forty seconds in, he assisted Luka Doncic on a bucket to close the deficit to 40-34. Two minutes later, an alley-oop to Dwight Powell. Twenty-five seconds after that, a third assist to Powell for a shot that brought the Mavericks to within three points.
“First of all, he’s my favorite player, so that’s just awesome for him to be out there,” Powell said. “I know how hard he’s worked, how much he’s sacrificed and I know how good of a teammate he’s been through this recovery process.
“Obviously, everybody wants to play. At the end of the day, that’s why we work every day on our game, is to be out there contributing. He hasn’t had the opportunity to do so yet but that has not in any way affected the way in which he supports his teammates, his energy on the bench, his influence in practice or how he prepares for every single game. For us, there was no surprise at all that when he came into the game, he was a spark plug and he energized us.”
After the Magic went on a 4-0 run in the next minute, Barea stopped dishing the ball and took matters into his own hands. First, a couple of free throws.
“I was aggressive, hit Dwight on a couple of passes early and then I got going with those free throws,” Barea said.
Thirty-eight seconds later though, Barea really got the American Airlines Center crowd going. Right in front of a few soldiers sitting courtside on Seats for Soldiers night, Barea hit a 3-point bank shot.
“The bank shot was awesome,” Barea said. “As soon as I hit the bank shot, I was like, ‘I’m hot. I’m hot right now.’”
Barea came back a minute later with another 3-pointer and then 34 seconds later, he hit a third triple to bring the Mavericks to within two, which is the deficit they carried into half. After scoring 30 points through the first 16 minutes, the Mavericks scored 24 points in less than eight minutes with Barea on the floor to close the first half.
He opened the second half in the lineup in place of Seth Curry with the rest of the starters. Despite some poor free-throw shooting, the Mavericks went on to win 107-106, thanks to bad fouls and missed shots by the Magic. Doncic was once again good in clutch time and helped close things out, but after the game, he raved about Barea and the way the reserve guard changed the game.
“It was just amazing,” Doncic said. “He’s a vet of this team, he’s one of the leaders. He’s been working hard, even playing all of his life, and he didn’t have a chance this season, so it’s just amazing to see him. I think he won the game for us.”
Whether it was Powell, Doncic, Maxi Kleber, Jalen Brunson or Kristaps Porzingis, the respect Barea’s name demands was obvious in the locker room. Barea hasn’t been out of the rotation because he’s not a capable player; that notion was dispelled Wednesday night. It just has to do with where this franchise is and where it’s going. The Mavericks are led by a 20-year-old and a 24-year-old in Doncic and Porzingis, respectively, and the majority of the roster is filled out with players on the front side of 30.
Barea is the oldest player on the roster at 35, Courtney Lee is close behind at 34 and Boban Marjanovic is the last player above 30 at 31 years old. Look at the minutes those three have played, and it’s not hard to identify that it’s not anything personal. There’s just a youth movement taking place right now.
Carlisle acknowledged as much after the game.
“(Barea and Lee) have both helped us immeasurably with our younger players, competing against them in practice, saying the right things to them during the games,” Carlisle said. “They’ve had a major impact in the games that we’ve won, and I remind them of that every day. They’re both good enough to play. We’re just in a situation right now with our roster, with a young veteran team, where the young guys are getting the first opportunity.
“Tonight is proof that we’ll do anything, at any time, to give us a spark because winning is the most important thing.”
On Wednesday night, the path to a win came through the spark provided by Barea.
The postgame scene was different. Usually, Porzingis is ready to address the media soon after the locker room opens up and the wait for Doncic is longer. Wednesday night, Doncic was at his locker when the media walked in and held court for a couple of minutes while Porzingis was getting treatment.
After a quick chat with Barea, most media members were just waiting around while some left. Some were questioning if talking to Porzingis was even necessary. He had a mediocre-to-bad game and Barea was really the story. However, with Porzingis’ old team, the New York Knicks, in town Friday, there was some New York media on hand so the wait rolled on.
About 30 minutes after the locker room was opened, Porzingis came in ready to take questions after treatment.
Here, I feel the need to add a disclaimer for clarity. Wednesday night marked exactly 21 months since Porzingis suffered a torn ACL. He missed 20 months of NBA game action before the first seven games of this season. By no means do I believe it’s time to write some hypercritical piece on Porzingis about why he isn’t back to his old, All-Star form. It’s going to take time. And while he hasn’t been his old self consistently, he hasn’t really been all bad, either. In fact, just before the Magic game, he was coming off a performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers in which he shot 50 percent from the field and blocked six shots. Earlier this season, he scored 32 points against the Portland Trail Blazers. It’s been there in spurts. Carlisle has also taken responsibility multiple times this season, including Wednesday night when he simply said, “I got to get him better shots.”
Give Porzingis credit, though, for accountability. While many athletes talk about holding themselves to a higher standard than anybody else, Porzingis showed Wednesday night at his locker that he meant it. He spoke for nine minutes, and he initially wasn’t even asked about his struggles but more about the team’s combined sloppy start. But, visibly frustrated, he quickly shifted the attention to his struggles and kept it there for the entire time he spoke.
rest...
So that nothing gets lost in translation, I decided to share our full conversation with Porzingis as it happened, where he discusses his frustrations with his current play, what he’s learned through this long recovery process and how he copes:
What happened to the offense early on? Seven turnovers, only made two of the first 11 shots out of the gate.
We’re not there yet, offensively. A big part of it is I can’t really find a rhythm yet. We’re still getting there. It’s a work in progress. It was an ugly win but still a win.
Seeing your minutes, looks like physically you’re feeling (fine)?
Yeah, my stamina and cardio is getting better. I just want to play well. I just want to play well, win games and show what I know I’m capable of. Right now, I’m just, I’m not there yet. I’m not there yet, and it’s really frustrating. But the only thing I can do is look forward now. This game is past us, I’m happy that we were able to get the win with me playing as awful as I did. On to the next one. I want to figure this thing out. Once I get back to where I want to get back, it will feel even better going through this (personal struggles) right now. I just want to figure this out as soon as possible, but I have to give myself time and not make it simple for myself.
How close do you feel like you are to getting back to being the player that you feel you’re capable of being, as far as your performance is concerned?
I mean, I’ve had some decent moments already, but it’s a mix of a lot of things that are new for me and that are there for me to figure out. I have to get the feel back, I have to get it back. Just how many times they hit the ball out of my hands and just things that — I have to be aware of those situations and the spots that I’m getting to to get my shots are not maybe the usual spots that I was getting used to when I played in New York. Now, it’s been 20 months since I played basketball last time. It’s a mix of a lot of things, but as I said, it’s in my hands to figure it out and get out of this moment right here. It’s frustrating. I try to not beat myself up too much about it, but I’m the first person that wants to get out of this moment that I’m in. (Deep breath) Oh man. That’s who I am, and it’s frustrating. I’m happy about the win, but I’m frustrated (with myself). It’s all good. It’s part of it. It’s part of the game that we’re in. I’m going to figure it out.
You feel like you’ll be able to figure it out against a team you’re very familiar with on Friday night?
Of course. I can’t wait to get back on the court again and fix this, what I did tonight. Not fix it but to take a step forward in the right direction. I know how much my teammates care about me, and they’re trying to get me into the game and looking out for me and things like that, but in the end, it’s on my shoulders to figure it out. We have another opportunity on Friday against my old team. It’s another game. It’s another game, and I’m looking forward to the game and getting a win, most importantly, but also for myself individually, I want to get back in my groove.
You want to make a statement on Friday?
I want to get a win. That’s what I want to get. I want to keep winning. We’re 5-2, I haven’t played well once and we have so much room to grow as a team. That’s the crazy thing. With myself and maybe some other guys also struggling in some moments, we’re still able to win games. Once I think we all put this thing together, we can be a force. I look forward to that.
What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned through this process? Twenty months, rehab, playing, coming back, what’s the biggest thing you learned?
It’s a lot of lessons. I would say the biggest thing for me is how much I grew mentally and how many things happened. I didn’t realize it, but when you get that basketball part taken away from you, I was in a little moment like, ‘I’m a basketball player,’ but when it’s taken away from you, you feel like it’s a huge part of you is taken away, and you don’t really know. It’s a weird thing, not ‘Who am I?’ but, like, ‘What am I supposed to do right now?’ It was that kind of thing. At the end, we’ve all got to realize — that made me realize, at some point, this is going to end. I’m not going to be a basketball player my whole life, and it’s a scary feeling, once that basketball part is taken away from you. That made me think a lot. Being in that situation, that allowed me to grow and realize that there are much more things outside of basketball.
What did you do when basketball was taken away?
Work. I was putting in a lot of work. Working on rehabbing, but the playing part was the tough part. I was out of it, and I’m still with the team, but I’m not really playing, I’m not really — especially myself, I always want to lead, I want to be an example, I want to be in the gym and when you’re not able to do those things, it’s a weird feeling. It’s like you get your voice taken away from you, almost. You got to find ways how to be present, how to be for your team and be a presence anyways. But it was tough, but it’s all a learning experience and I’m glad I went through that. It allowed me to grow as a person. Now I’m here, and this seems like nothing right now. I mean, it seems like a big deal, but it’s really nothing, putting everything in perspective. I just want to hoop. I just want to hoop and win and play well but you got to go through stuff like this, so on to the next one. I’m ready to go.
Who do you turn to, in this organization or outside?
I’m a little bit of a person that holds everything to myself. I hold everything to myself sometimes too much because I want to figure it out by myself. But I have a great support system around me. I have my physical therapist, and there’s great people here in the organization; shout out to our psychologist, he’s the man. There’s a lot of people you can talk to if you need help or if you just want to talk. There’s nothing wrong with me, but it’s good to talk to somebody sometimes, but I’m a person that kind of wants to figure it out by myself. As I said, it’s good to talk to people, too, and I know there’s help and support around me if I need it.
What happened to the offense early on? Seven turnovers, only made two of the first 11 shots out of the gate.
We’re not there yet, offensively. A big part of it is I can’t really find a rhythm yet. We’re still getting there. It’s a work in progress. It was an ugly win but still a win.
Seeing your minutes, looks like physically you’re feeling (fine)?
Yeah, my stamina and cardio is getting better. I just want to play well. I just want to play well, win games and show what I know I’m capable of. Right now, I’m just, I’m not there yet. I’m not there yet, and it’s really frustrating. But the only thing I can do is look forward now. This game is past us, I’m happy that we were able to get the win with me playing as awful as I did. On to the next one. I want to figure this thing out. Once I get back to where I want to get back, it will feel even better going through this (personal struggles) right now. I just want to figure this out as soon as possible, but I have to give myself time and not make it simple for myself.
How close do you feel like you are to getting back to being the player that you feel you’re capable of being, as far as your performance is concerned?
I mean, I’ve had some decent moments already, but it’s a mix of a lot of things that are new for me and that are there for me to figure out. I have to get the feel back, I have to get it back. Just how many times they hit the ball out of my hands and just things that — I have to be aware of those situations and the spots that I’m getting to to get my shots are not maybe the usual spots that I was getting used to when I played in New York. Now, it’s been 20 months since I played basketball last time. It’s a mix of a lot of things, but as I said, it’s in my hands to figure it out and get out of this moment right here. It’s frustrating. I try to not beat myself up too much about it, but I’m the first person that wants to get out of this moment that I’m in. (Deep breath) Oh man. That’s who I am, and it’s frustrating. I’m happy about the win, but I’m frustrated (with myself). It’s all good. It’s part of it. It’s part of the game that we’re in. I’m going to figure it out.
You feel like you’ll be able to figure it out against a team you’re very familiar with on Friday night?
Of course. I can’t wait to get back on the court again and fix this, what I did tonight. Not fix it but to take a step forward in the right direction. I know how much my teammates care about me, and they’re trying to get me into the game and looking out for me and things like that, but in the end, it’s on my shoulders to figure it out. We have another opportunity on Friday against my old team. It’s another game. It’s another game, and I’m looking forward to the game and getting a win, most importantly, but also for myself individually, I want to get back in my groove.
You want to make a statement on Friday?
I want to get a win. That’s what I want to get. I want to keep winning. We’re 5-2, I haven’t played well once and we have so much room to grow as a team. That’s the crazy thing. With myself and maybe some other guys also struggling in some moments, we’re still able to win games. Once I think we all put this thing together, we can be a force. I look forward to that.
What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned through this process? Twenty months, rehab, playing, coming back, what’s the biggest thing you learned?
It’s a lot of lessons. I would say the biggest thing for me is how much I grew mentally and how many things happened. I didn’t realize it, but when you get that basketball part taken away from you, I was in a little moment like, ‘I’m a basketball player,’ but when it’s taken away from you, you feel like it’s a huge part of you is taken away, and you don’t really know. It’s a weird thing, not ‘Who am I?’ but, like, ‘What am I supposed to do right now?’ It was that kind of thing. At the end, we’ve all got to realize — that made me realize, at some point, this is going to end. I’m not going to be a basketball player my whole life, and it’s a scary feeling, once that basketball part is taken away from you. That made me think a lot. Being in that situation, that allowed me to grow and realize that there are much more things outside of basketball.
What did you do when basketball was taken away?
Work. I was putting in a lot of work. Working on rehabbing, but the playing part was the tough part. I was out of it, and I’m still with the team, but I’m not really playing, I’m not really — especially myself, I always want to lead, I want to be an example, I want to be in the gym and when you’re not able to do those things, it’s a weird feeling. It’s like you get your voice taken away from you, almost. You got to find ways how to be present, how to be for your team and be a presence anyways. But it was tough, but it’s all a learning experience and I’m glad I went through that. It allowed me to grow as a person. Now I’m here, and this seems like nothing right now. I mean, it seems like a big deal, but it’s really nothing, putting everything in perspective. I just want to hoop. I just want to hoop and win and play well but you got to go through stuff like this, so on to the next one. I’m ready to go.
Who do you turn to, in this organization or outside?
I’m a little bit of a person that holds everything to myself. I hold everything to myself sometimes too much because I want to figure it out by myself. But I have a great support system around me. I have my physical therapist, and there’s great people here in the organization; shout out to our psychologist, he’s the man. There’s a lot of people you can talk to if you need help or if you just want to talk. There’s nothing wrong with me, but it’s good to talk to somebody sometimes, but I’m a person that kind of wants to figure it out by myself. As I said, it’s good to talk to people, too, and I know there’s help and support around me if I need it.
Meet the teenage girl whose Trevor Lawrence impressions have gone viral and impressed the Clemson QB himself
By Grace Raynor 3h ago
24
CLEMSON, S.C. — Trevor Lawrence sat down with Clemson’s social media team last month to open up a laptop and review what he thought would be game film.
It was a Monday morning, which usually means Lawrence will re-watch flashy plays his teammates made during a game the Saturday before, then react in real time so Clemson can capture it and post it to Twitter.
But not this time. The Tigers’ staffers had something funnier in mind.
The clip that appeared on his screen featured a teenage girl who has made a series of videos of herself while wearing Lawrence’s white Clemson jersey, posing to imitate some of his most memorable moments captured in photographs. With the long blonde hair and a headband, there is a striking resemblance.
Once the images were posted to social media platform TikTok, they quickly went viral.
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“She does look like me,” Lawrence said, laughing.
“I’ve seen a lot of those. It’s crazy. That one girl actually does look a lot like me so it’s kind of crazy. But it’s funny.”
The girl behind the videos is a bubbly 16-year-old named Bella Martina, from Alpharetta, Ga., just outside of Atlanta. Her face has been all over the Internet, but the backstory of her strike-a-pose fame has largely been unknown.
Her hometown is about an hour from where Lawrence grew up in Cartersville, Ga., but the two have never met. She is not necessarily a big Clemson football fan, but she did attend a Clemson volleyball camp two years ago, where she bought a Tigers sweatshirt.
She also rooted for Clemson when the Tigers won the national title in January. Her parents went to Florida and Mississippi State, so cheering for Alabama was out of the question.
“I don’t know what I would say to him (if we ever met) because I don’t know how he would react,” Martina said. “I’d be like, ‘Hi! My name is Bella. You’ve seen my TikToks. We have the same face.’ I’d be so overwhelmed. I might just squeal.”
This all started in U.S. History class.
Martina, an AP student who thinks she might like to be a journalist one day, was sitting in class at Centennial High when one of her friends on the boys soccer team tapped her on the shoulder.
His younger brother had just seen a picture of Lawrence on Snapchat, another social media platform, and took a screenshot of it to send along.
“(My friend) taps me and he’s like, ‘My brother just said you look like Trevor Lawrence,’” Martina said.
“I was like, ‘What?! I look like Trevor?’ and they’re all going ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and so then we started showing everybody in the class. They were all like, ‘Oh my gosh. Yeah. You have to do a side-by-side.”’
As she continued to investigate if she actually resembled Clemson’s quarterback or if her friend just had a funny hot take, Martina took an informal poll. She posted to her Snapchat a split-screen image, with her picture on one side, and Lawrence’s on the other.
“People say I look like Trevor. Y’all agree?” she captioned her post.
The replies flooded in.
“Everybody was like, ‘Oh my gosh. It’s kind of scary the accuracy.’ Everyone was freaking out,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I do look like him.’ It was so funny.”
From there, Martina shared the news of her discovery with her mother, Lisa, who went all in and hatched a plan. Martina had already been brainstorming a Halloween costume to wear to school. Almost immediately, Lisa went online and bought Lawrence’s No. 16 Clemson jersey.
She also even went to the internet to find photos of Lawrence’s mother, Amanda, to see if the two of them also looked alike.
“We just look like normal moms,” she said. “But it’s so funny that our kids look so similar.”
Once Martina got the jersey, at the urging of her volleyball teammates, she threw it on with a headband that resembles the one Lawrence wears to push back his hair in games. She found the picture of Lawrence she wanted to recreate, fixed her hair accordingly, posed identically and posted it with a simple caption: “they call me qb.” GoldLink’s “Crew” song played with it.
Not long after, her 12-year-old brother informed her she had become famous.
“Bella, you’re blowing up,” he brother Nick, told her at the time.
“I was like, ‘This. Is. Insane.’”
The video currently has more than 238,000 likes after four weeks. She currently has more than 40,000 followers on the app.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
When Clemson staffers saw her video, the Tigers’ own TikTok account “dueted” with her, meaning they posted a video to their own page of Lawrence watching her in the original clip.
Clemson Football
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“She does look like me.”
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Martina was in physics class with her phone on silent when she learned that Lawrence had seen her video, which prompted a quiet-but-ecstatic freak out.
“I see his face and I was (gasping) ‘Oh. My. Gosh.’ I couldn’t make any noise because (my teacher) was teaching so my eyes just got really wide and I literally gasped in the middle of physics. I show my friend next to me, I’m like, ‘he dueted it’ whispering and pointing to the phone,” Martina said. “The news quietly spread around the class in the span of like, two seconds.”
It is Martina’s second and most recent Lawrence video that has gone the most viral, gaining more than 345,000 likes. It’s a five-clip piece she captioned “ok i promise i’m done stealing this man’s identity” that highlights her going through a progression of Lawrence pictures and poses.
“I love to make people laugh and have a good time. Love to make fun of myself,” she said, adding that it makes her happy she can spread joy on social media. “The feedback has actually been really, really good. There’s been little to none negative comments. You would think there would be more because of how social media is these days, but everyone has been actually very positive.”
There’s an unexpected twist to this story, too. Back in January, Lisa actually had a conversation with her daughter about trying to be like Trevor Lawrence.
After Clemson dismantled Alabama 44-16 in the championship, Lisa made Bella keep watching the broadcast through the trophy presentation so that her daughter could see Lawrence’s postgame interview.
Lisa admired how the then-freshman from only a few towns over handled himself. Because Martina is an athlete — she plays both court and beach volleyball as a front-row threat — Lisa hoped her daughter would get something out of it.
“It’s just nice to see someone who had a lot of humility. He was very appreciative of not only his team but his coach,” Lisa said. “It was just nice to see that obviously he comes from a very good upbringing with parents where he respects the game, respects the people that support him and coach him, and obviously his parents.”
As a junior in high school, Martina is thinking about where she’d like to go to college and plans to schedule a tour of Clemson. She loves to travel and has a hunch that she’d like to go out of state.
In the meantime, attending a Clemson game and meeting Lawrence one day so Lisa can get a side-by-side photo is on her bucket list.
Martina is enjoying her brush with fame. She jokes that every time ESPN or any mega news outlet slides into her Instagram direct messages and asks her for permission to share her videos, she technically has to direct them to Lisa.
“I”m under 18,” she said she responds. “So … contact my mom.”
By Grace Raynor 3h ago
CLEMSON, S.C. — Trevor Lawrence sat down with Clemson’s social media team last month to open up a laptop and review what he thought would be game film.
It was a Monday morning, which usually means Lawrence will re-watch flashy plays his teammates made during a game the Saturday before, then react in real time so Clemson can capture it and post it to Twitter.
But not this time. The Tigers’ staffers had something funnier in mind.
The clip that appeared on his screen featured a teenage girl who has made a series of videos of herself while wearing Lawrence’s white Clemson jersey, posing to imitate some of his most memorable moments captured in photographs. With the long blonde hair and a headband, there is a striking resemblance.
Once the images were posted to social media platform TikTok, they quickly went viral.
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“She does look like me,” Lawrence said, laughing.
“I’ve seen a lot of those. It’s crazy. That one girl actually does look a lot like me so it’s kind of crazy. But it’s funny.”
The girl behind the videos is a bubbly 16-year-old named Bella Martina, from Alpharetta, Ga., just outside of Atlanta. Her face has been all over the Internet, but the backstory of her strike-a-pose fame has largely been unknown.
Her hometown is about an hour from where Lawrence grew up in Cartersville, Ga., but the two have never met. She is not necessarily a big Clemson football fan, but she did attend a Clemson volleyball camp two years ago, where she bought a Tigers sweatshirt.
She also rooted for Clemson when the Tigers won the national title in January. Her parents went to Florida and Mississippi State, so cheering for Alabama was out of the question.
“I don’t know what I would say to him (if we ever met) because I don’t know how he would react,” Martina said. “I’d be like, ‘Hi! My name is Bella. You’ve seen my TikToks. We have the same face.’ I’d be so overwhelmed. I might just squeal.”
This all started in U.S. History class.
Martina, an AP student who thinks she might like to be a journalist one day, was sitting in class at Centennial High when one of her friends on the boys soccer team tapped her on the shoulder.
His younger brother had just seen a picture of Lawrence on Snapchat, another social media platform, and took a screenshot of it to send along.
“(My friend) taps me and he’s like, ‘My brother just said you look like Trevor Lawrence,’” Martina said.
“I was like, ‘What?! I look like Trevor?’ and they’re all going ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and so then we started showing everybody in the class. They were all like, ‘Oh my gosh. Yeah. You have to do a side-by-side.”’
As she continued to investigate if she actually resembled Clemson’s quarterback or if her friend just had a funny hot take, Martina took an informal poll. She posted to her Snapchat a split-screen image, with her picture on one side, and Lawrence’s on the other.
“People say I look like Trevor. Y’all agree?” she captioned her post.
The replies flooded in.
“Everybody was like, ‘Oh my gosh. It’s kind of scary the accuracy.’ Everyone was freaking out,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I do look like him.’ It was so funny.”
From there, Martina shared the news of her discovery with her mother, Lisa, who went all in and hatched a plan. Martina had already been brainstorming a Halloween costume to wear to school. Almost immediately, Lisa went online and bought Lawrence’s No. 16 Clemson jersey.
She also even went to the internet to find photos of Lawrence’s mother, Amanda, to see if the two of them also looked alike.
“We just look like normal moms,” she said. “But it’s so funny that our kids look so similar.”
Once Martina got the jersey, at the urging of her volleyball teammates, she threw it on with a headband that resembles the one Lawrence wears to push back his hair in games. She found the picture of Lawrence she wanted to recreate, fixed her hair accordingly, posed identically and posted it with a simple caption: “they call me qb.” GoldLink’s “Crew” song played with it.
Not long after, her 12-year-old brother informed her she had become famous.
“Bella, you’re blowing up,” he brother Nick, told her at the time.
“I was like, ‘This. Is. Insane.’”
The video currently has more than 238,000 likes after four weeks. She currently has more than 40,000 followers on the app.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
When Clemson staffers saw her video, the Tigers’ own TikTok account “dueted” with her, meaning they posted a video to their own page of Lawrence watching her in the original clip.
Clemson Football
✔@ClemsonFB
https://twitter.com/ClemsonFB/status/1186438206797045760
“She does look like me.”
For more, follow us @ClemsonFB on @tiktok_us #ALLIN
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Martina was in physics class with her phone on silent when she learned that Lawrence had seen her video, which prompted a quiet-but-ecstatic freak out.
“I see his face and I was (gasping) ‘Oh. My. Gosh.’ I couldn’t make any noise because (my teacher) was teaching so my eyes just got really wide and I literally gasped in the middle of physics. I show my friend next to me, I’m like, ‘he dueted it’ whispering and pointing to the phone,” Martina said. “The news quietly spread around the class in the span of like, two seconds.”
It is Martina’s second and most recent Lawrence video that has gone the most viral, gaining more than 345,000 likes. It’s a five-clip piece she captioned “ok i promise i’m done stealing this man’s identity” that highlights her going through a progression of Lawrence pictures and poses.
“I love to make people laugh and have a good time. Love to make fun of myself,” she said, adding that it makes her happy she can spread joy on social media. “The feedback has actually been really, really good. There’s been little to none negative comments. You would think there would be more because of how social media is these days, but everyone has been actually very positive.”
There’s an unexpected twist to this story, too. Back in January, Lisa actually had a conversation with her daughter about trying to be like Trevor Lawrence.
After Clemson dismantled Alabama 44-16 in the championship, Lisa made Bella keep watching the broadcast through the trophy presentation so that her daughter could see Lawrence’s postgame interview.
Lisa admired how the then-freshman from only a few towns over handled himself. Because Martina is an athlete — she plays both court and beach volleyball as a front-row threat — Lisa hoped her daughter would get something out of it.
“It’s just nice to see someone who had a lot of humility. He was very appreciative of not only his team but his coach,” Lisa said. “It was just nice to see that obviously he comes from a very good upbringing with parents where he respects the game, respects the people that support him and coach him, and obviously his parents.”
As a junior in high school, Martina is thinking about where she’d like to go to college and plans to schedule a tour of Clemson. She loves to travel and has a hunch that she’d like to go out of state.
In the meantime, attending a Clemson game and meeting Lawrence one day so Lisa can get a side-by-side photo is on her bucket list.
Martina is enjoying her brush with fame. She jokes that every time ESPN or any mega news outlet slides into her Instagram direct messages and asks her for permission to share her videos, she technically has to direct them to Lisa.
“I”m under 18,” she said she responds. “So … contact my mom.”
A 16 year old girl running through the ACC
Meet the teenage girl whose Trevor Lawrence impressions have gone viral and impressed the Clemson QB himself
By Grace Raynor 3h ago24
CLEMSON, S.C. — Trevor Lawrence sat down with Clemson’s social media team last month to open up a laptop and review what he thought would be game film.
It was a Monday morning, which usually means Lawrence will re-watch flashy plays his teammates made during a game the Saturday before, then react in real time so Clemson can capture it and post it to Twitter.
But not this time. The Tigers’ staffers had something funnier in mind.
The clip that appeared on his screen featured a teenage girl who has made a series of videos of herself while wearing Lawrence’s white Clemson jersey, posing to imitate some of his most memorable moments captured in photographs. With the long blonde hair and a headband, there is a striking resemblance.
Once the images were posted to social media platform TikTok, they quickly went viral.
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“She does look like me,” Lawrence said, laughing.
“I’ve seen a lot of those. It’s crazy. That one girl actually does look a lot like me so it’s kind of crazy. But it’s funny.”
The girl behind the videos is a bubbly 16-year-old named Bella Martina, from Alpharetta, Ga., just outside of Atlanta. Her face has been all over the Internet, but the backstory of her strike-a-pose fame has largely been unknown.
Her hometown is about an hour from where Lawrence grew up in Cartersville, Ga., but the two have never met. She is not necessarily a big Clemson football fan, but she did attend a Clemson volleyball camp two years ago, where she bought a Tigers sweatshirt.
She also rooted for Clemson when the Tigers won the national title in January. Her parents went to Florida and Mississippi State, so cheering for Alabama was out of the question.
“I don’t know what I would say to him (if we ever met) because I don’t know how he would react,” Martina said. “I’d be like, ‘Hi! My name is Bella. You’ve seen my TikToks. We have the same face.’ I’d be so overwhelmed. I might just squeal.”
This all started in U.S. History class.
Martina, an AP student who thinks she might like to be a journalist one day, was sitting in class at Centennial High when one of her friends on the boys soccer team tapped her on the shoulder.
His younger brother had just seen a picture of Lawrence on Snapchat, another social media platform, and took a screenshot of it to send along.
“(My friend) taps me and he’s like, ‘My brother just said you look like Trevor Lawrence,’” Martina said.
“I was like, ‘What?! I look like Trevor?’ and they’re all going ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and so then we started showing everybody in the class. They were all like, ‘Oh my gosh. Yeah. You have to do a side-by-side.”’
As she continued to investigate if she actually resembled Clemson’s quarterback or if her friend just had a funny hot take, Martina took an informal poll. She posted to her Snapchat a split-screen image, with her picture on one side, and Lawrence’s on the other.
“People say I look like Trevor. Y’all agree?” she captioned her post.
The replies flooded in.
“Everybody was like, ‘Oh my gosh. It’s kind of scary the accuracy.’ Everyone was freaking out,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I do look like him.’ It was so funny.”
From there, Martina shared the news of her discovery with her mother, Lisa, who went all in and hatched a plan. Martina had already been brainstorming a Halloween costume to wear to school. Almost immediately, Lisa went online and bought Lawrence’s No. 16 Clemson jersey.
She also even went to the internet to find photos of Lawrence’s mother, Amanda, to see if the two of them also looked alike.
“We just look like normal moms,” she said. “But it’s so funny that our kids look so similar.”
Once Martina got the jersey, at the urging of her volleyball teammates, she threw it on with a headband that resembles the one Lawrence wears to push back his hair in games. She found the picture of Lawrence she wanted to recreate, fixed her hair accordingly, posed identically and posted it with a simple caption: “they call me qb.” GoldLink’s “Crew” song played with it.
Not long after, her 12-year-old brother informed her she had become famous.
“Bella, you’re blowing up,” he brother Nick, told her at the time.
“I was like, ‘This. Is. Insane.’”
The video currently has more than 238,000 likes after four weeks. She currently has more than 40,000 followers on the app.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
When Clemson staffers saw her video, the Tigers’ own TikTok account “dueted” with her, meaning they posted a video to their own page of Lawrence watching her in the original clip.
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✔@ClemsonFB
“She does look like me.”
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Martina was in physics class with her phone on silent when she learned that Lawrence had seen her video, which prompted a quiet-but-ecstatic freak out.
“I see his face and I was (gasping) ‘Oh. My. Gosh.’ I couldn’t make any noise because (my teacher) was teaching so my eyes just got really wide and I literally gasped in the middle of physics. I show my friend next to me, I’m like, ‘he dueted it’ whispering and pointing to the phone,” Martina said. “The news quietly spread around the class in the span of like, two seconds.”
It is Martina’s second and most recent Lawrence video that has gone the most viral, gaining more than 345,000 likes. It’s a five-clip piece she captioned “ok i promise i’m done stealing this man’s identity” that highlights her going through a progression of Lawrence pictures and poses.
“I love to make people laugh and have a good time. Love to make fun of myself,” she said, adding that it makes her happy she can spread joy on social media. “The feedback has actually been really, really good. There’s been little to none negative comments. You would think there would be more because of how social media is these days, but everyone has been actually very positive.”
There’s an unexpected twist to this story, too. Back in January, Lisa actually had a conversation with her daughter about trying to be like Trevor Lawrence.
After Clemson dismantled Alabama 44-16 in the championship, Lisa made Bella keep watching the broadcast through the trophy presentation so that her daughter could see Lawrence’s postgame interview.
Lisa admired how the then-freshman from only a few towns over handled himself. Because Martina is an athlete — she plays both court and beach volleyball as a front-row threat — Lisa hoped her daughter would get something out of it.
“It’s just nice to see someone who had a lot of humility. He was very appreciative of not only his team but his coach,” Lisa said. “It was just nice to see that obviously he comes from a very good upbringing with parents where he respects the game, respects the people that support him and coach him, and obviously his parents.”
As a junior in high school, Martina is thinking about where she’d like to go to college and plans to schedule a tour of Clemson. She loves to travel and has a hunch that she’d like to go out of state.
In the meantime, attending a Clemson game and meeting Lawrence one day so Lisa can get a side-by-side photo is on her bucket list.
Martina is enjoying her brush with fame. She jokes that every time ESPN or any mega news outlet slides into her Instagram direct messages and asks her for permission to share her videos, she technically has to direct them to Lisa.
“I”m under 18,” she said she responds. “So … contact my mom.”
DALLAS — For more than two years, Frank Ntilikina has been an enigma for the Knicks. He is a budding defensive savant who cannot win consistent playing time, tantalizing on one end and disappointing on the other. The last holdover of the previous regime for a franchise that has tried to distance itself from its past. At 21, he is a Rorschach Test for NBA values, if not the Knicks altogether.
But over the last week, Ntilikina has been graced with the rarest of gifts in the league: minutes. Plenty of them. The Knicks, with no other options remaining, finally gave their young point guard an opportunity to impress. Ntilikina, facing a season that could decide his career arc, has responded by rewarding them with production. Desperation has benefitted both player and team, bringing out the best in one another.
Friday night, Ntilikina brought out the best of himself, on a night that was supposed to be about another former Knicks pick — a game that was supposed to serve as another reminder of the regret and bad decisions the organization has piled up. This was supposed to be a night to punctuate the mistakes of its past. Instead, it was an exclamation point for the future it could have.
The Knicks came to Dallas to reunite with Kristaps Porzingis, their erstwhile franchise star, so he could mark his next chapter. He had helped orchestrate an unceremonious exit from the Knicks and landed with the Mavericks, paired with another European star-in-the-making, a new duo to lead the team for the next decade. Porzingis had his break up and was better off for it — this was the chance to parade it.
That time might still come but Friday wasn’t it. The Knicks took a 106-102 win over the Mavericks, even as Porzingis finished with 28 points and five blocks. Even as Luka Doncic had a 38-point triple-double. Even as they again almost blew a double-digit lead in a white knuckle fourth quarter. The 2-7 team left American Airlines Center feeling good about itself, and about Ntilikina, after a victory over a team that had been sitting near the top of the Western Conference.
He had the kind of game the Knicks have hoped for, even as he seesawed in and out of the rotation. Ntilikina was assertive, he was demonstrative; he was a pest on defense and aggressive on offense. He scored 14 points, grabbed six rebounds, thieved four steals and blocked three shots. This was Ntilikina released and free in the best game of his life.
“Frank looked great,” Porzingis said. “Frank looked great. I know he’s been putting in work. I know his work ethic, his mindset. I’m happy to see him play and play well and show the things he’s been capable of doing. He’s been playing defense this whole time but offensively tonight he got going and it’s good to see him finally show what he’s capable of. I think going forward with his mindset, with his work ethic, I think he’s only going to get better. It’s good to see him do those things. Sucks that it was against us tonight.”
Porzingis and Ntilikina had been the Knicks’ foundation at one point, the only two first-round picks made by Phil Jackson. Porzingis became The Unicorn, a 7-foot-3 marvel who could protect the rim and pop 3s — sui generis in NBA history. He was supposed to be the future for the next decade, if not more, for the franchise. Captivating as soon as he debuted, an All-Star at 22, an avatar of hope even as he rehabilitated a torn left ACL.
That ended late last January. The relationship between star and organization had frayed. What had begun with open rebellion against Jackson led to disquiet with his successors, Steve Mills and Scott Perry. No attempt to tend the differences was enough to truly fix the disrepair. Porzingis requested a trade; the Knicks complied within hours. If Porzingis was eager to get out, pulling a power play, the Knicks were eager to appease him, settling on a trade that had been hashed out the night before.
The end was swift and bitter after a partnership that seemed to have so much promise, surprising even the principals involved.
“I was (surprised),” David Fizdale said. “But this is the NBA, man. Everyone is always going to hunt for happiness and comfort, so that was a decision that he had to make. So here we are today.”
The true values of the deal won’t manifest themselves for years to come. The Mavericks have Porzingis and a chance to hunt the postseason now. The Knicks have two future first round picks, cap space flexibility — though it brought them disappointment this past summer — and Dennis Smith Jr., a struggling third-year point guard with promise but not enough return on it yet.
Friday, it didn’t look so bad for the Knicks, maybe a one game reprieve from reality. Porzingis started off fast but fouled out after a quiet second half. The Knicks, bogged down by the archetypal ills of bad teams for their first eight games, received steady contributions up and down the rotation. Julius Randle had 21 points and eight rebounds. Marcus Morris scored 29.
Then there was Ntilikina, who has seized his moment. Left with few other options after the team’s other point guards all became unavailable, Fizdale finally turned to him last week when Smith left the team to mourn a family member and Elfrid Payton, the offseason signing, was injured. Ntilikina has blossomed in that vacuum.
The guard who earned a reputation as too passive, too unwilling to seize his opportunities, has grabbed hold of the reigns. He has scored in double-digits in three of the last four games. He no longer lingers in his head and attacks as heartily on offense as he does on defense. Against the Mavericks, Ntilikina fired a stepback jumper, and swaggered after a 3. He attacked the rim with abandon, trying to posterize Porzingis at the rim, of all sentinels.
It is a case of individual growth and collective action. As much as Ntilikina has found himself, the Knicks have tried to push him there. Morris has taken it on himself to prod him into purpose. “Bring that battery in his back,” as he explains his role. Often, Morris says, he tells Ntilikina to take hold of the Knicks.
“Command the team,” Morris tells him. “It’s his team … He’s the point guard.”
He has been unleashed and finally able to play without speculation. After two seasons of limited independence, Ntilikina has been granted the leeway to err and to experiment. The Knicks have had no point guards left and so Ntilikina knew there was no one left to take his job. Knicks players and staffers have noticed the change, the confidence of a young man who has been granted the room to find himself without the worry of immediate discipline.
It is ironic, of course, that Ntilikina is finally breaking out. The Knicks, under Mills and Perry, have made move after move to find a point guard they could rely on, layering player after player over Ntilikina. Smith, picked one after Ntilikina in the 2017 lottery, is one example. Before him there was Emmanuel Mudiay. Payton took the starting position in the second game of the season. Ntilikina might just win out in their absence.
Ntilikina admits it has helped to be granted the time and to be allowed to make mistakes without fear of retribution. He has played at least 38 minutes three times in the last four games and Fizdale has entrusted him with opportunity.
“Yeah, it does but it’s just a feel of the game, what the game gives you,” he said. “If it’s 30 minutes or not you gotta take what the game gives you. We’re building for open shots, open looks, easy things, team basketball. Even if it was 10 minutes that’s the way I would’ve played.”
The signs of Ntilikina’s evolution are clear. In one fourth-quarter sequence, he blocked a shot in transition and then walked into a 3, preening after it splashed threw. A possession later, he hit a stepback jumper. Some things do not change however — when Ntilikina hounded the Mavericks defensively on a fourth-quarter possession, nearly coming up with a steal and then recovering after overrunning the play to block Dorian Finney-Smith’s shot, it was emblematic of the way he can blow up offenses on occasion.
Nothing spoke greater to his progress than the dunk attempt on Porzingis. He has never been so cutthroat in his NBA career. Ntilikina received the ball on the swing, immediately burst to the rim, saw Porzingis in front of him, and raised up trying to flush it down on him. It was audacious in its chutzpah but Ntilikina described it as simple pragmatism.
“It really didn’t matter if it was Kristaps or not,” he said. “It was just the right play to do — to go at the rim and be aggressive. It’s something I need to do more.”
The play was originally called as a foul on Porzingis but that was overturned on a coach’s challenge by Rick Carlisle. That left Ntilikina unfulfilled.
“Of course I wanted to have it,” he said. “When you have a big guy like this I think the best thing to do is either draw him and pass it, or go full speed and try to get the foul. I almost had it. They challenged it. Next time I’ll try to get it.”
While Ntilikina kept a neutral demeanor when talking about the dunk try after the game, he may have sent Porzingis a reminder of his intentions when the two met at halfcourt at the buzzer. They talked for a few moments and when asked if he tried to give Porzingis a message about that dunk, Ntilikina let loose a big smile.
“I can’t say anything,” he replied coyly.
That performance, of course, helped spur the Knicks to victory. The team, a misfitting collection of talents up to that point, left Dallas on a high in a season that has begun with one loss after another. The sight of Porzingis was only a reminder of where the franchise might be now. There is a counterfactual where Porzingis remained in New York, won over by Fizdale, and trusting enough of the front office to not want out. It would involve Ntilikina, RJ Barrett, Kevin Knox and Mitchell Robinson, as it does now.
Perhaps there is another star alongside them — the summer could have been different for the organization if he was still one of them. If not, the present and the path forward look sturdier and brighter. In New York, Porzingis would be the homegrown favorite who matured with the organization — the kind of parochial favoritism that he can’t quite have in Dallas, even if he came to the city a half-season after Doncic — rather the import who must assimilate.
Porzingis has chosen not to unpack the circumstances that led to his departure. He admitted Thursday, however, that something could have been done to change his mind and make him want to stay in New York long term.
“Of course,” he said. “Of course.”
But he did not want to elaborate. That illustrates the conditions for the two sides as well any other gesture and the questions they left behind. What made Porzingis so distrustful of the Knicks that he orchestrated his exodus with brute force? Why did he view those issues as so untenable that he could not stay and work them out? What did the Knicks learn from that to make themselves a more palatable organization for the next young star, and can they do enough to attract one from the outside?
Porzingis will only say that the split wasn’t “ideal.” To provide clarity, he says, would invite more trouble for himself.
The end for player and team was antagonistic. In the aftermath of the trade, the Knicks portrayed themselves as the put-upon franchise responding to a star who wanted no less than to go, and so they obliged. Porzingis went to Instagram and sent out a message directing Knicks fans to “Stay Woke.”
“That definitely wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen,” Porzingis said. “But there wasn’t really an other way how to do it. With all the emotions going on in that moment when I got traded I put out some stupid Instagram stories laying in my bed late at night like, man, I got traded. We all make mistakes. It wasn’t perfect. There was no smooth way out of that. It got a little bit ugly but it’s in the past. It’s in the past right now. I have nothing negative to say about that situation. It’s all a learning situation.”
It is all in the past now, though its aftermath will play out for years to come. Next week, he’ll make his return to New York and to Madison Square Garden and will surely be received with vitriol. But both sides are willing themselves to move on.
Friday night, Porzingis and Fizdale met on the court after the game and chatted. They’ve maintained a strong connection despite the tumult, texting after the trade and offering nothing but positive vibes. Here was one more check-in, the coach asking his former savior if he was happy now.
“That’s what it’s all about,” Fizdale said. “You’ve got to find happiness in this league. And he said he was happy, and he’s enjoying it. And I told him I’m just really happy to see him back out there healthy and running around.”
But over the last week, Ntilikina has been graced with the rarest of gifts in the league: minutes. Plenty of them. The Knicks, with no other options remaining, finally gave their young point guard an opportunity to impress. Ntilikina, facing a season that could decide his career arc, has responded by rewarding them with production. Desperation has benefitted both player and team, bringing out the best in one another.
Friday night, Ntilikina brought out the best of himself, on a night that was supposed to be about another former Knicks pick — a game that was supposed to serve as another reminder of the regret and bad decisions the organization has piled up. This was supposed to be a night to punctuate the mistakes of its past. Instead, it was an exclamation point for the future it could have.
The Knicks came to Dallas to reunite with Kristaps Porzingis, their erstwhile franchise star, so he could mark his next chapter. He had helped orchestrate an unceremonious exit from the Knicks and landed with the Mavericks, paired with another European star-in-the-making, a new duo to lead the team for the next decade. Porzingis had his break up and was better off for it — this was the chance to parade it.
That time might still come but Friday wasn’t it. The Knicks took a 106-102 win over the Mavericks, even as Porzingis finished with 28 points and five blocks. Even as Luka Doncic had a 38-point triple-double. Even as they again almost blew a double-digit lead in a white knuckle fourth quarter. The 2-7 team left American Airlines Center feeling good about itself, and about Ntilikina, after a victory over a team that had been sitting near the top of the Western Conference.
He had the kind of game the Knicks have hoped for, even as he seesawed in and out of the rotation. Ntilikina was assertive, he was demonstrative; he was a pest on defense and aggressive on offense. He scored 14 points, grabbed six rebounds, thieved four steals and blocked three shots. This was Ntilikina released and free in the best game of his life.
“Frank looked great,” Porzingis said. “Frank looked great. I know he’s been putting in work. I know his work ethic, his mindset. I’m happy to see him play and play well and show the things he’s been capable of doing. He’s been playing defense this whole time but offensively tonight he got going and it’s good to see him finally show what he’s capable of. I think going forward with his mindset, with his work ethic, I think he’s only going to get better. It’s good to see him do those things. Sucks that it was against us tonight.”
Porzingis and Ntilikina had been the Knicks’ foundation at one point, the only two first-round picks made by Phil Jackson. Porzingis became The Unicorn, a 7-foot-3 marvel who could protect the rim and pop 3s — sui generis in NBA history. He was supposed to be the future for the next decade, if not more, for the franchise. Captivating as soon as he debuted, an All-Star at 22, an avatar of hope even as he rehabilitated a torn left ACL.
That ended late last January. The relationship between star and organization had frayed. What had begun with open rebellion against Jackson led to disquiet with his successors, Steve Mills and Scott Perry. No attempt to tend the differences was enough to truly fix the disrepair. Porzingis requested a trade; the Knicks complied within hours. If Porzingis was eager to get out, pulling a power play, the Knicks were eager to appease him, settling on a trade that had been hashed out the night before.
The end was swift and bitter after a partnership that seemed to have so much promise, surprising even the principals involved.
“I was (surprised),” David Fizdale said. “But this is the NBA, man. Everyone is always going to hunt for happiness and comfort, so that was a decision that he had to make. So here we are today.”
The true values of the deal won’t manifest themselves for years to come. The Mavericks have Porzingis and a chance to hunt the postseason now. The Knicks have two future first round picks, cap space flexibility — though it brought them disappointment this past summer — and Dennis Smith Jr., a struggling third-year point guard with promise but not enough return on it yet.
Friday, it didn’t look so bad for the Knicks, maybe a one game reprieve from reality. Porzingis started off fast but fouled out after a quiet second half. The Knicks, bogged down by the archetypal ills of bad teams for their first eight games, received steady contributions up and down the rotation. Julius Randle had 21 points and eight rebounds. Marcus Morris scored 29.
Then there was Ntilikina, who has seized his moment. Left with few other options after the team’s other point guards all became unavailable, Fizdale finally turned to him last week when Smith left the team to mourn a family member and Elfrid Payton, the offseason signing, was injured. Ntilikina has blossomed in that vacuum.
The guard who earned a reputation as too passive, too unwilling to seize his opportunities, has grabbed hold of the reigns. He has scored in double-digits in three of the last four games. He no longer lingers in his head and attacks as heartily on offense as he does on defense. Against the Mavericks, Ntilikina fired a stepback jumper, and swaggered after a 3. He attacked the rim with abandon, trying to posterize Porzingis at the rim, of all sentinels.
It is a case of individual growth and collective action. As much as Ntilikina has found himself, the Knicks have tried to push him there. Morris has taken it on himself to prod him into purpose. “Bring that battery in his back,” as he explains his role. Often, Morris says, he tells Ntilikina to take hold of the Knicks.
“Command the team,” Morris tells him. “It’s his team … He’s the point guard.”
He has been unleashed and finally able to play without speculation. After two seasons of limited independence, Ntilikina has been granted the leeway to err and to experiment. The Knicks have had no point guards left and so Ntilikina knew there was no one left to take his job. Knicks players and staffers have noticed the change, the confidence of a young man who has been granted the room to find himself without the worry of immediate discipline.
It is ironic, of course, that Ntilikina is finally breaking out. The Knicks, under Mills and Perry, have made move after move to find a point guard they could rely on, layering player after player over Ntilikina. Smith, picked one after Ntilikina in the 2017 lottery, is one example. Before him there was Emmanuel Mudiay. Payton took the starting position in the second game of the season. Ntilikina might just win out in their absence.
Ntilikina admits it has helped to be granted the time and to be allowed to make mistakes without fear of retribution. He has played at least 38 minutes three times in the last four games and Fizdale has entrusted him with opportunity.
“Yeah, it does but it’s just a feel of the game, what the game gives you,” he said. “If it’s 30 minutes or not you gotta take what the game gives you. We’re building for open shots, open looks, easy things, team basketball. Even if it was 10 minutes that’s the way I would’ve played.”
The signs of Ntilikina’s evolution are clear. In one fourth-quarter sequence, he blocked a shot in transition and then walked into a 3, preening after it splashed threw. A possession later, he hit a stepback jumper. Some things do not change however — when Ntilikina hounded the Mavericks defensively on a fourth-quarter possession, nearly coming up with a steal and then recovering after overrunning the play to block Dorian Finney-Smith’s shot, it was emblematic of the way he can blow up offenses on occasion.
Nothing spoke greater to his progress than the dunk attempt on Porzingis. He has never been so cutthroat in his NBA career. Ntilikina received the ball on the swing, immediately burst to the rim, saw Porzingis in front of him, and raised up trying to flush it down on him. It was audacious in its chutzpah but Ntilikina described it as simple pragmatism.
“It really didn’t matter if it was Kristaps or not,” he said. “It was just the right play to do — to go at the rim and be aggressive. It’s something I need to do more.”
The play was originally called as a foul on Porzingis but that was overturned on a coach’s challenge by Rick Carlisle. That left Ntilikina unfulfilled.
“Of course I wanted to have it,” he said. “When you have a big guy like this I think the best thing to do is either draw him and pass it, or go full speed and try to get the foul. I almost had it. They challenged it. Next time I’ll try to get it.”
While Ntilikina kept a neutral demeanor when talking about the dunk try after the game, he may have sent Porzingis a reminder of his intentions when the two met at halfcourt at the buzzer. They talked for a few moments and when asked if he tried to give Porzingis a message about that dunk, Ntilikina let loose a big smile.
“I can’t say anything,” he replied coyly.
That performance, of course, helped spur the Knicks to victory. The team, a misfitting collection of talents up to that point, left Dallas on a high in a season that has begun with one loss after another. The sight of Porzingis was only a reminder of where the franchise might be now. There is a counterfactual where Porzingis remained in New York, won over by Fizdale, and trusting enough of the front office to not want out. It would involve Ntilikina, RJ Barrett, Kevin Knox and Mitchell Robinson, as it does now.
Perhaps there is another star alongside them — the summer could have been different for the organization if he was still one of them. If not, the present and the path forward look sturdier and brighter. In New York, Porzingis would be the homegrown favorite who matured with the organization — the kind of parochial favoritism that he can’t quite have in Dallas, even if he came to the city a half-season after Doncic — rather the import who must assimilate.
Porzingis has chosen not to unpack the circumstances that led to his departure. He admitted Thursday, however, that something could have been done to change his mind and make him want to stay in New York long term.
“Of course,” he said. “Of course.”
But he did not want to elaborate. That illustrates the conditions for the two sides as well any other gesture and the questions they left behind. What made Porzingis so distrustful of the Knicks that he orchestrated his exodus with brute force? Why did he view those issues as so untenable that he could not stay and work them out? What did the Knicks learn from that to make themselves a more palatable organization for the next young star, and can they do enough to attract one from the outside?
Porzingis will only say that the split wasn’t “ideal.” To provide clarity, he says, would invite more trouble for himself.
The end for player and team was antagonistic. In the aftermath of the trade, the Knicks portrayed themselves as the put-upon franchise responding to a star who wanted no less than to go, and so they obliged. Porzingis went to Instagram and sent out a message directing Knicks fans to “Stay Woke.”
“That definitely wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen,” Porzingis said. “But there wasn’t really an other way how to do it. With all the emotions going on in that moment when I got traded I put out some stupid Instagram stories laying in my bed late at night like, man, I got traded. We all make mistakes. It wasn’t perfect. There was no smooth way out of that. It got a little bit ugly but it’s in the past. It’s in the past right now. I have nothing negative to say about that situation. It’s all a learning situation.”
It is all in the past now, though its aftermath will play out for years to come. Next week, he’ll make his return to New York and to Madison Square Garden and will surely be received with vitriol. But both sides are willing themselves to move on.
Friday night, Porzingis and Fizdale met on the court after the game and chatted. They’ve maintained a strong connection despite the tumult, texting after the trade and offering nothing but positive vibes. Here was one more check-in, the coach asking his former savior if he was happy now.
“That’s what it’s all about,” Fizdale said. “You’ve got to find happiness in this league. And he said he was happy, and he’s enjoying it. And I told him I’m just really happy to see him back out there healthy and running around.”
Lucky_Lefty
Dreams Are Colder Than Death...
Suspended Raiders linebacker Vontaze Burfict doesn’t want to hear any comparisons of himself to Myles Garrett hitting a player with a helmet.
Garrett, the Cleveland Browns defensive end, was suspended on Friday for the last six games of this season and perhaps beyond after striking Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph with Rudolph’s helmet Thursday night.
Burfict can relate on at least some level. He was suspended for final 12 games and any potential playoff games after a helmet-to-helmet hit on Colts tight end Jack Doyle on Sept. 29.
But there’s a key difference, he said.
“The NFL had to suspend somebody for that last night, since that wasn’t a football act,” Burfict said in a phone interview with The Athletic on Friday afternoon. “My suspension was a football act. I was hitting somebody. I wasn’t taking a helmet off and swinging it at somebody.”
Burfict was watching the game with his daughters and turned off the television right after Garrett connected and the Steelers linemen responded by charging at him.
“I don’t want them to see that,” Burfict said. “Because that’s not what I do. That’s not part of football. I hit people on the field during the game. And they say that’s dirty, yeah, whatever. I get hit, too, during the games, so don’t complain. It’s football, bro.”
Burfict spoke publicly for the first time about his own suspension, the longest ever given by the NFL for on-field actions. During that Week 4 game, Doyle had a knee on the turf when he caught the pass and appeared to be making a motion to get up when Burfict lowered his helmet and hit him.
“It was bullshyt,” Burfict said. “I was making a football play. I could see if it was a fine or something, but not a suspension, let alone for the whole season. It kind of seems like there was a target on my head. I mean, there has always been a target on my head.”
Burfict said officials have been going to his coaches before games for years.
“They tell them, ‘Hey, Vontaze can’t push the receiver past five yards.’ And things like that throughout the season,” Burfict said. “So it makes you play cautious. … But then, when offensive linemen hit me in the head or push me late, you don’t see them getting fined. Or warned. And you don’t see me running to the media to complain. It’s football.
“But when people get hit by me, they fear me. And that picture is painted through the media. And on social media.”
Burfict said he has accepted that.
“Football is football, and my family is my life, so if people portray me as that, so be it,” Burfict said. “But I have seen other guys do crazier stuff than what I did, and I see that they get a slap on the wrist.”
After he was ejected from the Colts game, Burfict blew kisses to the Indianapolis crowd on his way to the locker room. It was viewed not only as a lack of remorse, but almost as celebrating his role as villain. Burfict said he was just killing the fans with kindness, and again mentioned his daughters, ages 4 and 2.
He doesn’t regret blowing kisses.
“Nah, because it was already bullshyt, getting thrown out of the game,” Burfict said. “I could have done way more, bro. I could have done way more than just run off the field. I could have raised hell. I could have done what old boy whatever his name is did last night. Raised hell, used my fists whatever. But I just ran off and I was getting flipped off and getting shyt thrown on me. The crowd was talking a lot of shyt, but I just blew kisses.
“I wanted to show to my daughters that I was OK, because I knew they were watching on TV. ‘There goes Daddy leaving the field …’ and I was not beating anybody up, like they were last night.”
Burfict said that officials often try to get a reaction out of him while prepared to hand out a resulting penalty.
“There have been times in games when a ref is cussing at me and wanting me to cuss back at him so he can throw me out of the game,” Burfict said. “Come on, bro. I don’t want to be out there playing against the refs and the opposing team.”
Burfict, 29, has been suspended four times in his career and fined numerous times for what many call dirty hits. But the Raiders signed him this offseason because he can still play and is close with defensive coordinator Paul Guenther. One of the reasons the Raiders are so mad about the suspension is because not only do they think it was excessive, but there was no warning.
“Does it make any sense to sign a guy where, after one infraction, he’s going to get thrown out of the league for the year?” Guenther said last month. “No, it doesn’t.”
Burfict said the league never told him that the next infraction was going to be his last.
“They didn’t, and it really doesn’t matter,” Burfict said. “I see other players make that same kind of play on a daily basis. It was a witch hunt. They were watching everything I do. They watched 171 of my plays this year. Tell me if they watched 171 plays of that linebacker from the Chargers, what’s his name, Thomas Davis? Go witch hunt him.”
The league reviewed all of Burfict’s plays this season after he appealed the 12-game suspension.
“I met (commissioner) Roger Goodell in New York and he was a total bytch,” Burfict said. “He was a bytch. He didn’t let anybody speak, he rushed us in and out of the meeting. The meeting was bullshyt. He already had the suspension in his hand.”
Burfict presented video of clean plays that he had made, plus dirty plays against him that weren’t called and that he didn’t retaliate to.
“They didn’t give a fukk about that shyt,” Burfict said.
Garrett, the Cleveland Browns defensive end, was suspended on Friday for the last six games of this season and perhaps beyond after striking Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph with Rudolph’s helmet Thursday night.
Burfict can relate on at least some level. He was suspended for final 12 games and any potential playoff games after a helmet-to-helmet hit on Colts tight end Jack Doyle on Sept. 29.
But there’s a key difference, he said.
“The NFL had to suspend somebody for that last night, since that wasn’t a football act,” Burfict said in a phone interview with The Athletic on Friday afternoon. “My suspension was a football act. I was hitting somebody. I wasn’t taking a helmet off and swinging it at somebody.”
Burfict was watching the game with his daughters and turned off the television right after Garrett connected and the Steelers linemen responded by charging at him.
“I don’t want them to see that,” Burfict said. “Because that’s not what I do. That’s not part of football. I hit people on the field during the game. And they say that’s dirty, yeah, whatever. I get hit, too, during the games, so don’t complain. It’s football, bro.”
Burfict spoke publicly for the first time about his own suspension, the longest ever given by the NFL for on-field actions. During that Week 4 game, Doyle had a knee on the turf when he caught the pass and appeared to be making a motion to get up when Burfict lowered his helmet and hit him.
“It was bullshyt,” Burfict said. “I was making a football play. I could see if it was a fine or something, but not a suspension, let alone for the whole season. It kind of seems like there was a target on my head. I mean, there has always been a target on my head.”
Burfict said officials have been going to his coaches before games for years.
“They tell them, ‘Hey, Vontaze can’t push the receiver past five yards.’ And things like that throughout the season,” Burfict said. “So it makes you play cautious. … But then, when offensive linemen hit me in the head or push me late, you don’t see them getting fined. Or warned. And you don’t see me running to the media to complain. It’s football.
“But when people get hit by me, they fear me. And that picture is painted through the media. And on social media.”
Burfict said he has accepted that.
“Football is football, and my family is my life, so if people portray me as that, so be it,” Burfict said. “But I have seen other guys do crazier stuff than what I did, and I see that they get a slap on the wrist.”
After he was ejected from the Colts game, Burfict blew kisses to the Indianapolis crowd on his way to the locker room. It was viewed not only as a lack of remorse, but almost as celebrating his role as villain. Burfict said he was just killing the fans with kindness, and again mentioned his daughters, ages 4 and 2.
He doesn’t regret blowing kisses.
“Nah, because it was already bullshyt, getting thrown out of the game,” Burfict said. “I could have done way more, bro. I could have done way more than just run off the field. I could have raised hell. I could have done what old boy whatever his name is did last night. Raised hell, used my fists whatever. But I just ran off and I was getting flipped off and getting shyt thrown on me. The crowd was talking a lot of shyt, but I just blew kisses.
“I wanted to show to my daughters that I was OK, because I knew they were watching on TV. ‘There goes Daddy leaving the field …’ and I was not beating anybody up, like they were last night.”
Burfict said that officials often try to get a reaction out of him while prepared to hand out a resulting penalty.
“There have been times in games when a ref is cussing at me and wanting me to cuss back at him so he can throw me out of the game,” Burfict said. “Come on, bro. I don’t want to be out there playing against the refs and the opposing team.”
Burfict, 29, has been suspended four times in his career and fined numerous times for what many call dirty hits. But the Raiders signed him this offseason because he can still play and is close with defensive coordinator Paul Guenther. One of the reasons the Raiders are so mad about the suspension is because not only do they think it was excessive, but there was no warning.
“Does it make any sense to sign a guy where, after one infraction, he’s going to get thrown out of the league for the year?” Guenther said last month. “No, it doesn’t.”
Burfict said the league never told him that the next infraction was going to be his last.
“They didn’t, and it really doesn’t matter,” Burfict said. “I see other players make that same kind of play on a daily basis. It was a witch hunt. They were watching everything I do. They watched 171 of my plays this year. Tell me if they watched 171 plays of that linebacker from the Chargers, what’s his name, Thomas Davis? Go witch hunt him.”
The league reviewed all of Burfict’s plays this season after he appealed the 12-game suspension.
“I met (commissioner) Roger Goodell in New York and he was a total bytch,” Burfict said. “He was a bytch. He didn’t let anybody speak, he rushed us in and out of the meeting. The meeting was bullshyt. He already had the suspension in his hand.”
Burfict presented video of clean plays that he had made, plus dirty plays against him that weren’t called and that he didn’t retaliate to.
“They didn’t give a fukk about that shyt,” Burfict said.
It would be funny to see Burfict win a SB and SB MVP and see him on stage accepting the award. Would piss a lot of people off.
Dr. Narcisse
Veteran
malbaker86
Gators
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