A bombshell report from the New York Post on Saturday evening brought word of rape allegations against Kristaps Porzingis. Now a player for the Dallas Mavericks, the alleged incident involving Porzingis and a woman who lived in is building in New York City occurred in February of 2018, when he suited up for the Knicks.
In the aftermath of the incident, Ian Begley of ESPN acquired a statement from Porzingis’ attorney, Roland G. Riopelle. After denying the allegations, Riopelle said that Porzingis and his team informed federal law enforcement and the NBA that this was forthcoming.
Statement from Kristaps Porzingis’ attorney Roland G. Riopelle, obtained by @IanBegley: pic.twitter.com/gHVjk3RfP3
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) March 31, 2019
Saying that Porzingis made the league aware that he was going to be accused of rape led to the obvious question of whether the Mavericks knew about this when they acquired him this past January. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, New York did indeed inform Dallas on the call that led to the two sides finalizing the deal.
On the February trade call to finalize the Dallas-New York deal, the Knicks informed the Mavericks of the pending rape allegation against Kristaps Porzingis, league sources tell ESPN. The league office had been previously made aware of the allegations.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 31, 2019
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban gave a statement to the New York Post in which he said the team was aware of the allegations, but did not say when they learned about them. Both Dallas and, specifically, Cuban came under fire in 2018 due to a Sports Illustrated story regarding sexual misconduct and abuse within their organization.
