Despite the drama at the end of the relationship, New York Knicks head coach David Fizdale hopes Enes Kanter lands with a contender.
Enes Kanter’s exciting tenure with the New York Knicks reached an anticlimactic end. Love him or hate him, Kanter always made things interesting. That’s great for fans and the media, but it’s not exactly what head coach David Fizdale wanted.
“Obviously we never want any of our stuff aired out in public,” Fizdale said to Chris Iseman of northjersey.com. “Never. That’s just something that we’re really trying to build into our culture that we can go deal with the stuff internally. But he was really frustrated. And I understand that. I always said that. I had empathy for his situation. Unfortunately, this is where we are, and this is where we were. I really enjoyed having Enes. I enjoyed him in the gym. He was a good teammate with these guys. He was fun to be around. You never want to see a guy go through that.”
Fizdale doesn’t seem like one to slander a guy once he’s out the door and he avoids doing that with Kanter. If he was injected with truth serum, maybe he would offer some different thoughts. Regardless, he takes the high road and both sides are better off.
Furthermore, Fizdale told reporters that he hopes Kanter lands on a contender.
“I’m just hoping that he can land with a playoff team and get his feet wet into some winning,” Fizdale said.
Kanter’s marriage with the Knicks ended in an ugly divorce, but both sides are better off afterward. Kanter can still provide scoring and rebounding off the bench for a contending team. Additionally, the Knicks can start implementing defensive concepts they hope to run with DeAndre Jordan and Mitchell Robinson dominating the minutes at center.
Kanter was a net negative at the end of his Knicks’ career due to his inability to defend the pick-and-roll. On a better defensive team, his deficiencies could be masked, but the Knicks were not good enough defensively to do so.
The Turkish center is still capable of providing 15 to 20 minutes per game on a contending team somewhere.
