New York Knicks

Kristaps Porzingis doesn't like Shawn Bradley comparisons or his nickname

Published Sep. 17, 2015 1:07 p.m. ET

foxsports

Can we all stop making fun of Shawn Bradley?

No? We can't? Oh well...The request was worth a try.

Even Knicks rookie Kristaps Porzingis, who was only nine years old when Bradley played his final NBA game, is getting in on the Bradley bashing now.

Back in the eighth installation of ESPN's "The Phil Files," a series of interviews with Jackson revealing his inner-most Knicks-relate thoughts, Jackson said, "Like Shawn Bradley, who was nevertheless a pretty good player, KP might almost be too tall for the game."

It wasn't a dig at Porzingis, but it blew up, nevertheless. Compare anyone to Shawn Bradley, the lanky, 7-foot-6 tree who NBA players used to go out of their way to try and dunk on, and you've got to assume the subject of that comparison is going to be upset. Porzingis is apparently no exception, per ESPN's Ian Begley:

Jackson wasn't saying that the Zinger is stylistically similar to Bradley, just that they're both awkwardly tall, which they are; Porzingis is listed at either 7-foot-1 or 7-foot-3 depending on who you want to believe. But the Zinger wasn't buying it.

Speaking of which, he's not buying that nickname, either.

It's a real disappointment. "The Zinger" is pretty darn fantastic, especially for someone as lanky and athletic/exciting as him. But if he doesn't want it, I guess we have to go with "KP" from now on—though we could go with the Big Baby treatment, too. There was a time when Glen "Big Baby" Davis didn't want to go by Big Baby anymore, and the entire basketball community just shook its head and said, "Nahhh, we're going to keep calling you that."

What we shouldn't keep doing, though, is continuing to jeer Bradley a decade after his retirement. Guess what...Shawn Bradley wasn't a bad player. He averaged 2.5 blocks per game for his career, swatted more than three a game for each of his first six seasons and actually led the league in stuffs during 1996-97. He appeared in Space Jam. He was a well above-average defensive rebounder. He deterred guys from getting to the rim all the time, even if many did try their best to dunk all over him. No, you weren't going to give him the ball and tell him to make a play, but that was never Bradley's game.

Shawn Bradley was an above-average NBA player, a useful presence on any team. And I will defend that point either until I die or until everyone else in the world finally agrees with me.

(h/t Begley)