Kristaps Porzingis received a FaceTime call in San Francisco on Tuesday from a very familiar face. The person most responsible for his basketball career called to tell him he had made his first NBA All-Star team.
The official word came from the NBA later that day, but Janis Porzingis wanted to share the news with his brother Kristaps first.
Janis has been the driving force behind Kristaps' ascension from a scrawny big kid playing on youth teams in Leipaja, Latvia, to playing professionally as a teenager in Seville, Spain, to becoming the face of the Knicks and one of 24 players selected to the NBA All-Star Game.
"It's special," Janis said. "It's a big honor to be in that group of players. Those are considered the best in this league and in the world. I think it's a milestone. He feels like he belongs to something now. We all have worked around him. He has worked and we have worked around him to accomplish those things.
"We were very, very happy about it. It was a happy moment for us."
Kristaps, 22, said making the All-Star team was "a dream come true" and brought him a feeling of national pride. After speaking to Janis, Kristaps tweeted "Just a kid from Latvia" with a photo of himself.
Four Latvians have played in the NBA. Gundars Verta played 13 games with Minnesota in 1992-93. Center Andris Biedrins spent 10 seasons with the Warriors and Jazz before his NBA career ended in 2014. And 6-10 Davis Bertans currently is a backup on the Spurs.
