GREENBURGH, N.Y. — During a five-on-five scrimmage on Wednesday at the Knicks’ practice, Allonzo Trier noticed his old Arizona teammate Kadeem Allen running down court on the break.
Trier chased down Allen, elevated and pinned the shot to the glass from behind — LeBron James-style.
“You went up to get that one,” Allen told Trier.
By head coach David Fizdale’s count, Trier has half a dozen “chase-down blocks,” or “LeBron-blocks” during his tenure with the Knicks, dating to summer league.
“Most guys don’t even make that effort when they’re 10-15 feet behind a guy,” Fizdale said Wednesday. “This kid, he just runs guys down and then at the square he’s just pinning it up against the glass. And so there are just very few players that have a knack for that and he’s one of them.”
Trier averaged 17 points during summer league. “He definitely has the potential,” Knicks teammate Kevin Knox said.
Dating to his time as a prep school phenom, the 6-foot-5-inch Trier has always been known as an offensive-minded guy who can score the basketball. Last year during a turbulent year at Arizona, he averaged 18.1 points, 3.2 assists and 3.0 rebounds while shooting 38 percent from beyond the arc. But it may be his defense that helps Trier make the 15-man roster out of training camp.
Trier signed a two-way contract that could pay him between $75,000 and $275,000, depending on how much time he spends with the Knicks.
“Maybe, maybe,” Fizdale said. “He’s good, man. He’s a good player.”
Trier has been a national name in basketball circles since before he hit puberty, as the Washington Post pointed out in 2014. When Trier was in sixth grade, he appeared on a TV commercial with Carmelo Anthony. He was so good by eighth grade that he wasn’t allowed to play with a team of kids his age.
He spent the first few years of high school being home-schooled at a co-op in Oklahoma before becoming a basketball free agent.
Originally from Seattle, he moved to Dallas; Oklahoma City; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Washington, D.C., and finally Las Vegas while playing for various schools, including national powers Montrose Christian (Rockville, Maryland) — which produced Kevin Durant — and Findlay Prep (Henderson, Nevada), which produced former No. 1 pick Anthony Bennett.
“The reason I went to Findlay was to qualify and go to Arizona,” Trier said. “Montrose being a Christian school, you can only take certain classes there. So that was the reason for making the move to go to Findlay.”
Trier’s time at Arizona was eventful, to say the least.
Trier tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs before the 2016-17 season, leading to a 19-game decision. He returned in January 2017.
In February 2018, Trier was ruled ineligible by the NCAA after testing positive for the same banned substance. He appealed, took another urine test, and was ruled eligible in time for Arizona’s March 1 win over Stanford.
“Yeah, it’s obviously frustrating, especially when it was something that out of my control,” Trier said. “It was not my fault that I was being punished for but you can’t do nothing about that. You learn who you are when you’re going through deep battles and I know I’m a guy who is built to get through anything and I’m tough, I’m tough-minded, I can last.”
Trier’s final season was overshadowed by the September arrest of longtime UA assistant Book Richardson and a February ESPN report that said coach Sean Miller had discussed a $100,000 payment to Deandre Ayton, the 7-1 Bahamian native who ultimately became the No. 1 overall pick to the Phoenix Suns.
Both Ayton and Miller denied the report, and after Miller sat out one game against Oregon, he returned to the sideline. The Wildcats won the Pac-12 regular-season and tournament titles, but lost to Buffalo in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Ayton, a freshman, and Trier, a junior, both declared for the draft immediately after the loss.
“It’s a tough way you don’t want to go out,” Trier said. “That’s part of college basketball. It’s not the NBA; you don’t play a seven-game series in the playoffs. You play one game, a team gets hot, they can beat you. Unfortunately, we went into a game where we didn’t play our best basketball. They played their best basketball and they beat us, that’s kind of how the game goes.”
As for the Miller/Ayton situation, Trier said he was glad to be around both despite the turbulence.
“It was a good experience,” he said. “I got to play with a great player, I got to play for a great coach for a few years and be a part of great program that has great tradition, great history, and accomplish some great things — win a few Pac-12 titles and continue to add on to history and be a part of something bigger than myself. So I’m proud of all the things I was able to accomplish individually and as a team player throughout Arizona.”
Trier went undrafted but quickly signed a two-way with the Knicks on July 3. He impressed in summer league, averaging 17 points per game.
“Yeah, I was surprised I wasn’t drafted,” he said. “Obviously, everything I went through in college didn’t help but I don’t think my ability is in question. My numbers and everything I was able to do on a basketball court was on display in college and my work speaks for itself. And that’s why I’m here and I’m glad to be here.”
Fizdale said he “didn’t know much” about Trier before the Knicks signed him.
“When I started watching film on him, I could see why some people might’ve passed on him because in college there was no space for him to really move around,” he said. “You could really pack it in in college but all of a sudden with the floor spread, his game has opened up. … I think that’s the good thing about our scouting staff. They see through stuff with the college players that they’re looking at. I really think they did job with him.”
Kevin Knox, the Knicks’ first-round pick out of Kentucky, said he was surprised Trier wasn’t drafted.
“Yeah, I was but I know he had a lot of stuff going on in college,” Knox said. “But in college he was killing it. He was averaging almost 20 points per game, shooting 40-something percent from the 3-point line, NBA 3. So he definitely has the potential. He’s playing really well right now and hopefully keep it up.”
Fizdale wouldn’t commit to whether Trier will start the season in the G League or on the 15-man roster, preferring instead to see what develops.
“I don’t want to say G League or he’s up with us, let’s see what happens because he’s a talented kid,” Fizdale said.
For his part, Trier’s long, winding path has finally led him to the NBA and he’s in it for the long haul. The more chase-down blocks he gets, the better his chances of sticking around.
“This is what I’ve always expected to do,” he said of the NBA. “ It’s something I feel like I’m built for and I’ll be able to play in this game for a long time, so I feel confident about my ability. I feel i can play here for a long time and hopefully I can keep continuing to build on that and continue to get better.”
