Some NBA players are great from the start. Some have greatness — and $71 million — thrust upon them.
Tim Hardaway Jr. isn’t a great player yet, even though coach Jeff Hornacek used that word after he scored a career-high 38 points in a 108-100 victory over the Raptors at the Garden on Wednesday night.
What Hornacek actually said was that in the second half of last season with Atlanta, Hardaway “had started to turn the corner in terms of being a great player.”
Good timing, then, because Hardaway became a restricted free agent and the post-Phil Jackson Knicks front office signed him to a four-year, $71-million offer sheet.