Kristaps Porzingis holds hometown press conference, announces he will play for Latvia this summer

Kristaps Porzingis wasted little time after returning to his native Latvia last week, announcing in a Monday press conference that he will indeed represent his home country in this summer’s Eurobasket tournament.

Porzingis made no secret of the fact that he wanted to play for Latvia this time around. The Knicks convinced him to skip last summer’s Olympic qualifying tournament, but their opinions probably didn’t hold as much sway following the cruel joke that was the 2016-17 season.

Porzingis vs. Kuzminskas. Sounds like a damn monster movie.

Wooo! Insurance!

Porzingis did talk about his professional club for a bit during the press conference, and it wasn’t super positive, as you can imagine.

Holy crap...his rookie season featured his head coach (Derek Fisher) crossing the country during pre-season and getting punched by Matt Barnes, as well as a mid-season coaching change which left the team in the hands of Kurt Rambis. And that was the more positive season!

At least Kristaps had some nice things to say about Joakim Noah’s leadership.

That’s worth something, right?

Anyway, good luck in Eurobasket, Kristaps. We’ll be rooting for you.