The Knicks seemed to finally be turning the corner this off-season, they decided to move on from Phil Jackson and they drafted a great defensive point guard of the future in Frank Ntilkina, they even traded Carmelo Anthony and got some value in return.
But they also did one very Knicks thing: sign Tim Hardaway Jr. to a four-year, $71 million contract in the midst of a chillingly cold free agency period in which few non-stars were being paid a lot of money, definitely not players of Hardaway Jr.’s caliber.
To the surprise of some and the (desperate) delight of the Knicks, Hardaway Jr. has been pretty solid thus far this season, averaging 18.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 34 minutes per game.
In spite of all of this, he is very aware of all of the chatter surrounding his contract and uses it as motivation, as he told Peter Walsh of SLAM Magazine:
“I have to use [criticism] as motivation,” he says. “I take it as those are your fans and they’re coming at you with that. It hurts. But at the same time, you can’t harp on that. You have to go out there and show that you deserve what the Knicks offered. At the end of the day, it’s not my fault. They came to me. I knew that if it was something big, I would have to deliver. I’ve been delivering since last season in Atlanta. I feel like I’m confident and capable of getting what I got money-wise and going out there and playing for the team and playing for the franchise and playing for the city.”
Obviously the teams make these contract decisions in these situations and not the players and Hardaway Jr. would have been certifiably insane to turn it down.
All he can do is fill the role they request of him to the best of his ability, which he basically is doing thus far, and silence all of the doubters.
He and the Knicks are a pleasant surprise this season.
