Nobody was more surprised than Hawks veteran power forward Elton Brand when he received the midnight email last July 1 from Knicks president Phil Jackson. Free agency had begun, and Jackson wanted to express his immediate interest and talk to the Westchester native.
“It was at the deadline, at 12:01 a.m., then we spoke that morning,’’ Brand told The Post before the Hawks fell to the Nets at Barclays Center on Monday in Game 4. “It was surprising just because of his stature. It wasn’t surprising of what he was trying to do to rebuild that team and putting in that work.