LAS VEGAS — With seven minutes left in the fourth quarter Sunday, New York Knicks guard Allonzo Trier grabbed a loose ball near half-court, dribbled to the free-throw line, took one hard crossover to his right and finished the layup while drawing contact.
And one.
Oohs and cheers echoed throughout Cox Pavilion while one short and stocky Knicks fan wearing a Kristaps Porzingis jersey turned to his friend, flexed his arms and waved a towel above his head.
It gave the Knicks the lead, but New York ultimately lost the contest to the Utah Jazz 90-85 on Day 3 of the NBA Summer League. The Knicks dropped their first game of the summer.
Trier had a sluggish start and only scored two points in the first half on 0-for-6 shooting. He alternated between both guard positions throughout the game much like he did on Saturday, and the former Arizona Wildcat played on the ball mostly in the second half.
He lived up to his nickname, Iso Zo, and got touches on the wing.
Ex-UA Wildcat Allonzo Trier had 15 points in an NBA Summer League game Sunday.
And when he held the ball on the wing, he either swung the ball around the perimeter or looked to score. Trier played a game-high 32 minutes and scored 15 points on 4-of-16 shooting from the field. He was 7 of 7 from the free-throw line to compliment Kevin Knox’s 19-point outing.
“It’s good to play with these guys and we’re getting comfortable. We’re playing for the first time so we’ll figure out each other’s tendencies,” Trier said on playing with Knox and point guard Frank Ntilikina.
In two starts, Trier has shown that he could be a viable option for the Knicks in the near future. In the last two games, Trier has played the most minutes out of any player on the Knicks, but why did he go undrafted if New York was so high on him?
“It was a team that was really high on me already, but after I worked out with them, I stayed in communication with them,” Trier told the Star after his debut on Saturday. “I thought I was gonna be taken by them at (No. 36). ... “The priority for them was to get a big first so they went with (Mitchell Robinson), which is totally understandable.
“I had a chance to get picked from about 40 on, and they were all places that I thought weren’t great fits so we turned down pretty much everybody after that and decided that we were going to go with the Knicks because that was the best fit for me in the first place.”
New head coach David Fizdale, center, and the New York Knicks opted to pass up Allonzo Trier in the second round to instead select Kevin Knox, left, and Mitchell Robinson, right, in the NBA Draft.
According to Trier, teams were willing to draft him late in the second round, which was where several NBA mock drafts had him landing, but Trier spurned them, because he didn’t envision fitting in.
Instead, Trier went undrafted and signed a two-way contract and will earn a base salary of $75,000, but could potentially rake in $385,000.
Trier’s decision appears to be an outlandish, unsmart and head-scratching call on the surface because it’s not common for players to do this, but it could help him out in the long haul.
Not all second-round picks are guaranteed more than $1 million. Former Wildcat Kadeem Allen was a second-round pick in 2017 and wound up signing a two-way deal, similar to Trier’s contract, and played most of the season with the Maine Red Claws of the G League.
Going undrafted and entering a franchise where it’s loaded at point guard, but lacks scoring from guards could turn out to be a smart move.
“There’s a lot of film on me and they know the kind of player that I am so I’m just trying to show that I can fit in,” Trier said.
Trier has struggled from the field, shooting just over 32 percent, but he’s averaged 15 points and four rebounds through two games in Las Vegas.
His three-point shooting has been non-existent, but he’s found multiple ways to score, such as attacking the rim and drawing fouls, which was his bread and butter at Arizona.
After watching the film, first-year head coach David Fizdale mentioned that Trier is an “assassin” and compared him to two-time NBA Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams, who’s been one of the most prolific scorers in the association.
“The guy is a scorer. He knows one thing and that’s get buckets,” Fizdale said about Trier to New York reporters before the summer league began.
If the head honcho is dishing out compliments for an undrafted player, then maybe staying patient to see how Trier carves out his NBA career instead of calling out his draft tactics is the fair call.
