Well, Joakim Noah is out, a fact which every Knicks fan is sure to be happy about, but their happiness is tempered by the fact that Willy Hernangomez is still not the starter. Nope, the starting center job was given to the center-sized Porzingis, and the starting power forward role has been entrusted to the dependable Kyle “Irish Black Santa” O’Quinn, who is actually not always dependable, so I don’t know why I called him that. Irish Black Santa has a servicable midrange jumper and some rudimentary post moves, but his main attribute is he always hustles like he’s on a ten-day. That doesn’t make him dependable necessarily, but it does make him about ten times as useful as the current version of Joakim Noah, who has the same amount of hustle but none of the offensive skill.
I was looking forward to the Porzingis-Hernangomez starting tandem but apprently Jeff Hornacek values a stocky dude with a James Harden beard crashing the glass hard more than developing chemistry between the Knicks’ big men of the future. That’s cool. It’s just, you know, the season is over for the Knicks so you might as well let Hernangomez shoot the midrange jumpers that O’Quinn got this game.
Side note: I’m aware that some fans like to shorten O’Quinns name to “KOQ”, but I’m not going to use that acronym because it makes a naughty word when you pronounce it out loud. To me, O’Quinn is Irish Black Santa. He is not KOQ. That nickname frankly sucks KOQ and I refuse to use it.