Fizdale: KP will see minutes at the 3

[Monkhouse]

Lol what?

While the New York Knicks have played some small lineups with Kristaps Porzingis at center and his preference is to play power forward, David Fizdale envisions the possibility of playing him at small forward as well.

“Anthony Davis, you name him, he’s that,” Fizdale said. “It’s that dynamic guy who can outrun everybody but you can’t put a small on him. You put somebody too big on him he can pull him away from the rim. Defensively, he can guard everybody.”

Fizdale told Porzingis about his interest in playing him at the 3.

“In our conversations I just told him, ‘I don’t have a position for you. Are you cool with that?’ ” Fizdale said. “He’s like, ‘Absolutely.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t like being put in a box.’

“I’m not going to put him in a position to fail. I’m not going to throw him in a situation where he’s going against some brute out there and get beat to death. At the same time, our league doesn’t really have a lot of those guys anymore. He gives me a lot of flexibility to move him four, to five and even some three.”

Fizdale said he’s already thought of a lineup with 6-9 rookie Kevin Knox at shooting guard, Porzingis at small forward, 7-1 Luke Kornett at power forward and 7-1 rookie Mitchell Robinson at center.

“Put a whole bunch of wingspan with Kevin at the two and see how teams deal with that at the rim and with our length,” Fizdale said. “I can’t lock him into nothing.”

Am I the only one confused?

Kevin Knox at 2, KP at 3, Kornett at 4, and Mitchell at 5?

Sure your team may boast the highest wingspans, but switching on defense is certainly going to be an issue.

[dreamgreen]

He doesn't have the foot speed to guard 3's and he's no AD either!

[Sketch5]

I like to see them do that against us. Brown/Hayward/Tatum would make him their #$##$#. LOL

[ETNCeltics]

That's absurd. He has no hope of defending a 3. He can't defend a 4 the way the game is generally played today.

[saltlover]

I think it is a perfectly sensible move to ask a player coming off an ACL tear to guard even more mobile players than he was guarding prior to his injury.

[JHTruth]

Ugly. The is so awkward, he will get eaten alive at the 3

[Atzar]

I don't see the benefit in this.  He'll struggle more on defense, he'll spend more time on the perimeter which will deflate his already-poor rebounding stats, and I'm not convinced that matching him up against smaller, faster forwards will help him on offense either. 

And yeah, asking him to come off of an injury and guard quicker players is asking for trouble. 

[Beat LA]

In before the quote from Dodgeball , lol .