Wednesday marked an anniversary, a year to the day when Kristaps Porzingis crumpled to the floor on the baseline at Madison Square Garden, his left ACL torn and the Knicks' future suddenly up for grabs.
But as the 7-3 budding star was carried on the shoulders of teammates and trainers to the locker room, the last time he would be seen on the court in a Knicks uniform, it would have seemed impossible to predict the healing process — not for Porzingis, who remains in rehabilitation protocol, but for the Knicks, who traded him last week to shift the rebuilding plan from his fragile frame to the mystery of the coming free-agent market.