Kristaps Porzingis is still working on his legacy

It was never a given that Kristaps Porzingis would even get to worry about his legacy.

Most NBA players spend their whole careers proving themselves and even fewer are afforded the luxury of leaving something behind. Most hope to carve out roles all over the league and perhaps making a difference on a contending team once or twice. Most never manage to carve one out, and many are never even given a chance to.

But a select few are chosen to think about legacy, both by their otherworldly physical gifts and relentless dedication to honing them. For these superstars, a “role” is already carved for them, and they transcend the system to become it. They are uniquely permitted to consider how history will view their actions, rather than simply who might offer them their next opportunity.

Kristaps Porzingis has spent his entire career oscillating between these extremes. He began his career as an instant pariah to the Madison Square Garden faithful, yet just as quickly became the savior they’d always been searching for. But before anyone got comfortable, he had flamed out his welcome as the Knicks’ “superstar” and wound up in a dynamic duo with Luka Doncic that proved not as dynamic as Dallas wanted. He was then banished to Washington, where he managed to grab the car keys and rehabilitate his value with the best season of his career.

On his first three teams, Porzingis’ was either billed as the glorious answer to their questions or an always-injured liability, but never anywhere in between. That is, of course, until he arrived in Boston.

Always having to fit into pre-carved roles, the Boston Celtics afforded him a chance to craft a new one. When Porzingis arrived last June, the team’s token superstar spot was already filled by Jayson Tatum, the dynamic duo spot occupied by Jaylen Brown, and depth pieces were just popping out of drawers.

Every other time in his career, Porzingis was asked to push the rock all the way up the mountain, but this time he just had to give it a little nudge over the top. He became the ultimate luxury: a superpower that the Celtics used to obliterate a league they had already proven themselves capable of beating. It resulted in a championship — something most of the team will use to define their legacy — but will Porzingis?

There’s always a “yeah, but…” with him. Yeah, Porzingis was the key to the Celtics’ machine all year, but only played seven playoff games. Yeah, he avoided serious injuries all year, but suffered two major ones in the playoffs. Yeah, he played an iconic game in the NBA Finals, but had to limp to the finish line in the end. Yeah, the Celtics will now look to defend their title, but will do so without him perhaps until Christmas, as he recovers from surgery.

Will that be his legacy? Will injuries plague his remaining two seasons under contract, with the 2023-2024 championship salvaging how Celtics fans remember him? Could he transcend those limitations and go down as a key member of a yet-realized Celtics dynasty and become an icon in Boston lore?

Or is it time to drop the binary Porzingis?

The answer to what his legacy will be surely lies somewhere in the middle, as his tenure in Boston has finally allowed him the creativity to be more than simply a success or failure. Beyond his towering stature, theoretical greatness and medical reality exists a fascinating player the Celtics have just scratched the surface of. All that’s left is to see how good Boston will get.

Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images

Where did all this black and white come from?

No player is simply a collection of either-ors. Porzingis’ career has been just as complex and misunderstood as any other, but the circumstances of each stop on the pain-train of his career have invited oversimplifications.

The first the NBA saw of Porzingis was also the first many fans had heard of him. He was infamously booed by New York Knicks fans on Draft Night after going 4th overall in the 2015.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever lived through as a Knicks fan,” said the then-17-year-old Mark Dantuono to the New York Post in 2015. “He didn’t score that many points in Europe. What’s he going to do in the NBA?”

As is true with many prospects who do not play American college basketball, a disproportionate number of fans probably had never even heard of Porzingis, let alone seen him play. Public analysis of the draft pick, both in New York and nationally, relied on heuristics and oversimplifications to describe an incredibly confusing player.

He was apparently 7 foot, 3 inches tall. He could apparently shoot threes. He was apparently the next great European import, on the level of Pau Gasol or Dirk Nowitzki. Or maybe he was just the second coming of Darko Milicic, one of the great busts in NBA history. He apparently had limitless upside, but lots of apparent limitations.

New Yorkers ended up doing what any great NBA fan base does: hope for the best outcome while also latching onto the worst one and freaking out about it. Porzingis would either be one of the greatest, most revolutionary power forwards in NBA history or he would be the next in a long line of unproven European busts — a unicorn of sorts.

This was, and remains, a ridiculous way to evaluate players. American fans’ lack of access to European players has never been a good reason not to draft them, and there exists a long history of anti-European bias in the NBA biosphere. But it’s what we do, as human nature often rejects things it doesn’t understand.

Porzingis got to work turning around the boos, and did as good a job as he could convincing New Yorkers that he would be their next franchise player. He had a very strong first two seasons, earning All-Rookie First Team honors and snagging an All-Star nod. But then came the ACL tear, which coincided with the Knicks refusing to extend a rookie extension. Thus began Porzingis’ four-year ordeal.

His beginnings illuminate his binary image, but it is pointless to relitigate his entire career, from his unceremonious exit from New York to teaming up with Doncic in Dallas; in short, it was a partnership that proved untenable after a disastrous first-round playoff loss to the Los Angeles Clippers in which Porzingis played dreadfully, eventually damning him to Washington where he would presumably never bother anyone ever again.

It is likewise useless to spend too much time worrying about which injuries plagued him in which seasons, and try to connect the dots from ACL tear to knee bruise to meniscus tear to foot sprain to calf strain.

What matters is that Porzingis missed 25 or more games in each of the four seasons between his Knicks exit and first full Wizards season. He became typecast as an always-injured unreliable star, perhaps closer to a super tall, budget Kawhi Leonard from Latvia than a Dirk Nowitzki. “And maybe he should just lose the star tag entirely,” thought the NBA world. Nobody much cared when he played 65 games with career numbers for a half-awake Washington team.

It was almost certainly just an outlier, and the league knew that a contending team couldn’t rely on him as their centerpiece. So, everyone turned away and refused to be tricked.

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That is, everyone other than Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens and new Wizards chief executive Michael Winger. The former saw that Porzingis wouldn’t need to be a centerpiece on his team, and the latter was ready to tear his down to the bedrock.

It initially would have taken Malcolm Brogdon and a third team to grab Porzingis, but after that deal fell through, it wound up taking Marcus Smart and a different third team. The Boston fans would surely recoil, but driven by the words of former Celtics assistant Jay Larranaga, Stevens steeled his nerves twice over and prepared to be tricked.

“‘If we’re not trying to improve, we’ll stop being good,’” said Stevens to ESPN’s Ramona Shelbourne about the Porzingis trade, quoting Larranaga.

Knowing what we know now, the Porzingis trade does not seem real when you lay it out on paper. The Celtics traded Marcus Smart, Danilo Gallinari, Mike Muscala and a second round pick for Kristaps Porzingis and two lightly protected first round picks. With Smart injured for most of last season and the Celtics winning the championship, it is certifiably bananas that the Celtics somehow acquired multiple first round picks along with Porzingis.

That is the genius of Stevens. While we may never get the full story on how the trade went down, here’s my dummy script that I would submit to the Hallmark Channel for a made-for-TV movie about the deal:

Stevens: “Ok, Memphis, how does Brogdon, Gallinari and two seconds sound for you to move Tyus Jones and a pick to Washington so we can get Porzingis?”

Memphis: “Hmm… I know you had that deal with the Clippers, but we’re concerned about Brogdon’s medicals. You’ll have to do better than that, and there’s only six minutes until the deadline for Porzingis’ contract to be traded.”

Stevens: “How about… Marcus Smart?”

(Everyone on the conference call gasps)

Memphis: “Are you… are you sure, Brad? What will the city think?”

Stevens: “I’ll need two protected firsts, but I can swing it if you can. We’re running out of time!”

Memphis: “Washington?”

Washington (wakes up): “Hmm? Oh we’re getting Tyus and some picks for this guy that we literally have to trade to rebuild? Sure, dude, do whatever you want.”

Stevens and Memphis, simultaneously: “…deal.”

I may have some trouble getting that produced, but it remains true that Stevens likely managed to leverage Smart’s emotional value to Boston to acquire more assets than he may have been worth cold. Those picks were eventually part of what brought Jrue Holiday in, and Smart’s departure unleashed Derrick White in a way the world was simply not ready for.

The Celtics walked away with a death lineup and plug-and-play 20-points-per-game. And Stevens walked away with an NBA Executive of the Year award.

By the time the season started up, it became clear that Porzingis would not be boxed in by the binaries that had ruined the memory of his early career. His first game, ironically against the Knicks, saw him hit a game winning three-pointer on top of 30 points and four blocks.

It was glorious. It showed what Porzingis could be for this team at his best: completely additive with Tatum and Brown still captaining the ship, and he was more or less that as the season progressed through its many colors. Porzingis didn’t play a single back-to-back, missing 25 regular season games — many of which were planned — without suffering any major injuries.

But Celtics fans had seen this movie before. In fact, just one year ago, Malcolm Brogdon — a Porzingis-level injury risk for his entire pre-Celtics career — managed to get through the regular season unscathed. But then an elbow injury neutralized his jump shot at the end of the second round, and he became unplayable in the Eastern Conference Finals.

And right on queue, in Game 4 of the Celtics’ first round series, Porzingis suffered what seemed like a substantial knee injury. Many fans, media members, and myself had become convinced that the Celtics were the favorites with Porzingis healthy down the stretch, and would struggle without him. He was Boston’s superpower, and they needed to be more than mortal to win it all.

But that was just another binary. “Would Porzingis be healthy or not?” turned out to be yet another oversimplification of his career that had finally escaped them. Through the despair of fans, anxiety over matchups and late game offensive execution, the Celtics themselves declared that Porzingis would not be put in another either-or box.

He was by no means involved in most of the Celtics’ playoff victories — they won 10 of their 16 playoff wins without him — but he was around for three of the four NBA Finals wins. Yeah, he was hardly his regular self in the closeout Game 5, and was injured during the Game 2 win…

…but words cannot describe the jolt of electricity he provided Boston in Game 1.

Dallas wasn’t just surprised by Porzingis in Game 1; they were flabbergasted, dumbstruck, and completely unprepared for the steam roller that punctuated the Celtics’ dominant first half. Porzingis was making hero blocks in transition, strapping threes from thirty feet out, and smiling at the TD Garden crowd like it was his birthday party and everyone showed up.

It is one of the iconic Celtics wins of my lifetime, and I’ll never forget how Porzingis made it happen. He was unavailable for much of the series, but made sure every shred of his time on the floor hit the Mavericks like a truck.

Far from a duality, Porzingis’ playoff performance was a complex mixture of injured disappointment and blazes of unreplicable glory, with the former now irrelevant to the history of these Celtics. Because they won.

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But those histories haven’t been written yet, and Porzingis has plenty of time to add more pages to this chapter. Unfortunately, with his surgery recovery dominating at least the first two months of the season, he’s the only player whose title defense won’t start out with sunshine and lollipops.

It’s unclear how much longer Porzingis will play for the Celtics. He’s under contract for two more years, though he is only 28 years old. As for the rest of the starting lineup, Brown and Tatum won’t be going anywhere per a pair of $300+ million deals, with Holiday and White around for the next four years. But Porzingis may not fetch that kind of long-term commitment with the risk he carries.

The history of super-big men aging into their thirties isn’t great, especially with Porzingis’ portfolio of lower body injuries. But Boston isn’t just any team, and they may be best suited to allow him to extend his career should they be able to pay him. He won’t have the usage rate other teams would demand of him, and he’s essentially been allowed to play a mid-30s veteran role with rest days and maintenance relatively early in his career.

But that’s a lot of what-ifs, and it may be better for the Celtics to focus on their three-year window with their entire championship roster locked and loaded. Year One of the Porzingis-Holiday Corollary to the Tatum-Brown doctrine went pretty well, and nothing should contractually stand in their way for a while.

Granted, contracts aren’t the only problem. Porzingis’ playoff injuries didn’t sting as much mainly because 38-year-old Al Horford went crazy for two months, shouldering the Celtics’ big-man minutes like he was a spry twenty-something again. It may be foolish to expect that again.

I would say something dramatic to end this off, like “the hopes of Celtics fans everywhere rest on Porzingis’ giant shoulders,” but they really don’t.

And I think that’s the point.

Porzingis isn’t the savior of Boston, nor was he asked to be. He was asked to be helpful, and boy, did he ever deliver on that request. He never got in the way, never demanded a bigger role, and never asked the team to use him differently or for more opportunities to initiate the offense. He had put all that behind him, and the Celtics organization was in lockstep with who Porzingis wanted to be: a winner, finally; and to be known as one.

I’m not sure exactly what I’ll remember most about Porzingis once he leaves Boston, whenever that may be, but I’ll never forget one thing: his smile.

Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

Just in researching photos to insert into this article, there were more photos of Porzingis beaming at the crowd, his teammates, the cameras or at nothing in particular than I could believe. For as much pain as he regularly endures, you’d think he’d have a grizzlier look about him. But his smile pierces through every camera it ever catches, and ever since he arrived you can tell he’s truly happy.

Stevens and Co. may have seen Porzingis as the mythical basketball deity to bring the Celtics over the top, or maybe they just saw a guy who wanted to escape the boxes and the either-ors to be part of something great; something happy, perhaps even something bigger than himself.

And when you’re as big as Porzingis, that can be hard to come by.