Kristaps Porzingis didn’t just turn heads this week; he practically flipped the sports script on his own career. The Atlanta Hawks’ 7’3 big man – fresh off an NBA title with Boston – casually mentioned that he’s eyeing a post-basketball future in mixed martial arts. And not just “maybe, someday.” He’s already thinking about preserving his body for it.
The timing of this revelation? Right before Latvia hosts Slovenia in a friendly that, on paper, doesn’t mean much – except it happens to pit Porzingis against his former Dallas Mavericks running mate, Luka Doncic, for the first time in Europe since 2017.
Porzingis says there’s no bad blood, even if their Mavericks chapter ended awkwardly. “I have a normal relationship with Luka. Of course, things didn’t go well in Dallas. That’s in the past,” he told local reporters. But as he spoke about the possibility of meeting Slovenia in a knockout stage later in the summer, there was an unmistakable competitive edge. “Why not use it as extra motivation? Even for a friendly, we’ll give it our all.”
From Dallas Days to Different Paths
Their pairing in Dallas once carried championship hopes. Instead, it fizzled under injuries, clashing styles, and whispers of friction – Chandler Parsons even claimed on The Pat McAfee Show that “Luka did not like playing with him” (SI.com). Both have since downplayed that narrative, but the headlines stuck.
Porzingis’ journey has taken him from New York to Dallas, Washington, Boston (where he won it all in 2024), and now Atlanta. Doncic’s jump to the Lakers was a seismic NBA shift – one that left Dallas to build around a new franchise cornerstone, Anthony Davis.
For Porzingis, the MMA talk isn’t just hype. His comments echoed a shift in mindset – a desire to control what’s next. “I’m saving myself so I can start an MMA career after basketball,” he said in an interview picked up by Essentially Sports. At 30, he’s already thinking about trading jump shots for jiu-jitsu.
That doesn’t mean he’s coasting until retirement. If anything, Saturday’s game could offer a little preview of the edge he’s carrying. The two may exchange polite words before tip-off, but when the ball goes up, neither man has a reputation for taking it easy.
Back in June’s NBA Finals, Porzingis had warned that Doncic always responds in big games. “He’s one of the best players and he’s going to bring it, so we have to be ready,” he told Yardbarker. Now, the roles have shifted: Doncic is the face of the Lakers, while Anthony Davis is leading the Mavericks, and Porzingis is the Hawks’ championship-tested centerpiece with a fight-sports future in mind.
Whether this friendly stays just that, or morphs into a statement game for one or both players, the crowd in Riga will get more than they bargained for – a glimpse at two careers that split apart, collided again, and still carry the kind of tension you can feel from the cheap seats.
Read the full article here
