misterearl wrote:Hall and Oates Sayfishmike wrote:misterearl wrote:The National Anthemdacash wrote:so doing a service for your country is wrong?
Don't get it twisted dacash. National pride is always a good thing, unless you have intentions of inciting a war... It is not KPs decision to represent Latvia which is the issue.
It is that fact he did not feel any need to ask permission from his employers in New York to do so. In corporate-speak, THAT is a bold (middle finger) statement.
there should be clarification here. Why does he need to ask? Is it in his contract?This is very simple. If by contract he is allowed to play than he doesnt need to discuss it. Why would he? The Knicks have ZERO interest in him playing for anyone but the Knicks. Thats business. KNICK business. KP doesnt need the Knick's blessing, and the Knicks dont need him to ask for it. Its KP's choice, end of story.
Big middle finger? KP freezing out MSG? Amazing with all the coverage this team gets these geniuses cant see that 1+1=2. KP blew off his exit meeting because it made sense to. It made sense to avoid fielding questions and having his "feelings" leaked about the Melo situation (his mentor) and end of season toxic mess. It made sense to not appear as a corporate yes man to the players in the league and the guys he's got to play with next year. It makes sense as a message to his current employer that he is not a yes man and his own man and that he holds his own desitiny.. this is basic corporate/work tactics and politics. There is about 4% of the drama here that is actually being suggested. Big middle finger? More like a slide out the door and see ya next year. This is offseason fodder at this point. This is like an overdue library book.
Nah fishmike - in the immortal words of the musicians above, "I Can't Go For That."
The Knicks are not paying KP millions of dollars to have his offseason out of their control. You conveniently forget we are talking about the corporate suits at MSG who monitor number of minutes media can speak directly to players or coaches. Once that player is close to the limit, a media monitor steps in to declare the session over. Do you REAAAAALY think they are happy about a prized possession (yes, they think of players as property) going his own way in the offseason without so much as a courtesy call?
Think again about the context and what you know about the personna of the Dolan regime. Think carefully with an objective mindset.
The assumption s that Porzingis is "out of control" but I'm not so sure of that at all. The heavy-handed MSG media handling may be getting replaced by a smarter methodology.
First example is that Phil was advised to stop tweeting and he did and is self-referential about it like "yeah, I shouldn't be doing that".
Second Phil speaks to the media on his own terms and not as a scared, reactionary executive worried about being called politically incorrect.
Third, and here's where it gets interesting, is that Porzingis is largely saying not much directly to the media either. Instaed he points to his brother as a proxy spokesperson with the team and media. If you look at this systematically, maybe the Knicks and Porzingis are being deliberate and are testing a new strategy of detoxifying the media. This would be a perfect example of that Zen kind of thing to do.
By claiming to not speak to the Knicks, all the media can do is speculate. By looking like a rebel, Porzingis looks like the good guy in a "good cop/bad cop" game. By using his brother as a proxy spokesperson both he and the Knicks have plausible deniability - "Sorry the brother must have misunderstood." No harm/no foul AND the media has been chasing its own tail in the interim keeping them happily rumor mongering with nothing to show for it.
This is very interesting for its lack of urgent reactionary response from the team. So much so that I think the organization is working back channels exclusively - a very smart thing to do AND, btw, wholly contradictory to the notion that the Knicks are in chaos.
