By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Over the summer, New York Knicks head coach David Fizdale traveled to Latvia in order to meet and become well acquainted with the star player of the franchise: Kristaps Porzingis.
Fizdale and his wife, Natasha Sen-Fizdale, visited Liepaja, Porzingis’ hometown, and spent some days with the Latvian All-Star forward’s family.
“That was a must,” Fizdale said to NBC New York when asked how important the travel to Latvia was. “And that’s just who I am. I’ve never “not seeing” a player in the summer. Wherever they are, I’m going there. For me and my wife to be able to experience his culture. To see how he and his family live day-to-day in the city. How he grew up. The things he ate when he grew up. All the places he played. For him to share it that with us and for his family to let us in and showing us this hospitality… it was amazing.
“Kristaps is excited. We had fun. Four days of fun,” Fizdale said. “We talked some hoops. I actually planned on watching film with him but we were having so much fun just hanging out and talking that we never even got to to the film part of it. A lot of the conversations was about the culture and the environment that we’re trying to create where everybody is held accountable, everybody respects each other and we’re all here to serve each other.”
“He likes the challenge of me saying I want him to be the MVP. I want him to be DPOY. Real competitors… they want that,” Fizdale added.
Photo: @nyknicks