New York Knicks star pays tribute to Isaiah Hartenstein

After a week of tongue-in-cheek verbal jousting, Josh Hart was finally willing to show some love to a former New York Knicks teammate.

One of the biggest headlines surrounding Friday night’s fight between the Knicks and the Oklahoma City Thunder (8 p.m. ET, MSG/NBA TV) is the fact that New York will face former center Isaiah Hartenstein for the first time since signing a three-year, $87 million deal with the artists formerly known as Seattle SuperSonics.

As the Knicks prepared at the Paycom Center, Hart offered a tribute to Hartenstein in a way that only he could, mixing legitimate respect with biting and humorous comments.

“You don’t really know a player’s true ability or selflessness until you’re a teammate,” Hart said, according to Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. “In Los Angeles with the Clippers, he was solid. But he came to New York and played a style and brand of basketball that (head coach Tom Thibodeau) loves.”

“He was a great locker room guy for us, selfless, didn’t care about being the center of attention, did all the dirty work and won us a playoff game. I think he had 10 offensive rebounds. And he didn’t care about scoring. He was like , ‘I’m going to dominate the glass.’ So when he’s your teammate, you love him. Now that he’s not your teammate, he can smoke one.”

Hart’s trademark sense of humor has proven a bit annoying. addressing Hartenstein’s departure and remained consistent after the Knicks’ most recent effort: following a 119-103 victory over the Utah Jazz at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks’ ninth in a row, Hart I jokingly hoped Hartenstein’s new payday would slow him down.

Hartenstein was an NBA journeyman for four seasons, playing for four different teams before landing a two-year, $16 million contract with the Knicks. Last year served as his breakout season, as he took over as the Knicks’ starting center when Mitchell Robinson went down.

In 49 appearances in the starting lineup, Hartenstein averaged 9.4 rebounds and 8.7 points and led all playoff participants in offensive rebounds until Dallas’ Dereck Lively replaced him during the late stages of the NBA Finals. As Hart alluded to, one of his best performances was a 12-rebound offensive performance during Game 5 of the conference semifinals against the Indiana Pacers, tying a Knicks single-game playoff record set by Charles Oakley during Hart’s career. 1994 towards the Finals.

Hartenstein took advantage of that to make a small deal with the Thunder and justified that payday with 12.6 points and 12.2 rebounds per game, both career highs. All of that comes after Hartenstein missed the first half of this season after suffering a hand injury during the exhibition slate.

While Karl-Anthony Towns has maintained the Knicks’ interior situation well, there’s no denying that some kind of paint power was lost after Hartenstein’s departure, and he’ll have an excellent opportunity to show it tonight.

Be sure to bookmark Knicks on SI for breaking news, exclusive interviews, movie breakdowns and much more!