For how hectic the NBA’s offseason has been, there hasn’t really been any especially juicy beef between teams or players. Sure, the Lakers appear to be a bit upset with how Kawhi Leonard’s free agency went down, but I mean the really good stuff that leads to eyebrows being raised and rumors getting thrown around.
Fortunately, the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs are here to give us something good. There are some understandably bad feelings between the two teams over the free agency of Marcus Morris, as the veteran forward agreed to a two-year deal with the Spurs, only to back out of it and head to the Knicks on a one-year contract.
But as it turns out the tension between the two sides goes back a bit deeper than the Morris drama. According to Ian Begley of SNY, New York doesn’t think San Antonio is in a position to complain. That’s because the Spurs, in their estimation, did some less than ideal stuff while the Knicks were looking to trade Kristaps Porzingis.
Per SNY sources, there are people in the Knicks organization who feel some with the Spurs operated outside of accepted NBA norms at times when Kristaps Porzingis was a Knick.
The Knicks talked to teams about trading Porzingis prior to the 2017 NBA Draft and eventually traded the face of their franchise to Dallas last February. Some with the Knicks felt San Antonio crossed lines of accepted behavior prior to the Porzingis trade.
There’s no word on exactly what the Spurs did, just that it set the Knicks off in such a way that they were pretty upset. As Frank Isola of The Athletic pointed out, the two teams competed for a title against one another back in the 1990s and have never exactly gotten along great, so perhaps some rekindled beef isn’t a shocker. Still, front office drama is always a blast, so many thanks to the Knicks and Spurs for giving us some this summer.
