Cole Aldrich suddenly a factor for Knicks

New York Knicks center Cole Aldrich (45) defends Washington Wizards forward Otto Porter Jr. (22) in the second half of an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden in New York, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2014. The Wizards defeated the Knicks 102-91. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Hey, who’s that big guy for the Knicks scoring and rebounding? He kind of looks like Cole Aldrich.

Oh, wait. That is Cole Aldrich.

A backup post player with no previous sustained history of success in the NBA, Aldrich entered this season with little fanfare and quite possibly the least expectations of any former Kansas player in the league.

The “all-elbows-and-kneecaps” center, as Billy Witz described him in a feature for the New York Times, never had played more than 46 games in a season nor averaged more than 2.2 points.

However, with a recent new role, Aldrich suddenly looks like a serviceable interior presence, and not just a really tall guy who can wave a towel and congratulate teammates at the end of New York’s bench.

The Knicks (5-29) are terrible. Only one team in The Association can claim a worse winning percentage as the calendar turns to 2015, and that’s the “Seriously, we’re not tanking” Philadelphia 76ers (4-26).

Everybody has a bad day at the office now and then. The Knicks have been spilling coffee down their shirts while blowing the big presentation on a loop for two months now. So it helps to have someone around who can keep everybody from wanting to rip their hair out. For New York, Aldrich is that guy.

As the Lawrence Journal-World’s Gary Bedore wrote about back when Aldrich was a junior at KU, the big man lost his front left tooth while battling in the paint as a Jayhawk. To this day, the 6-foot-11 center plays without his replacement tooth in his mouth, and he told the N.Y. Times that doesn’t stop him from flashing a smile with a prominent gap.

“As weird as it sounds, I think it
brings a little lightness to the air,”
Aldrich said. “Somebody says something
funny and I get a big old grin on my
face, and somebody starts laughing.”

While little moments such as that surely are rewarding in their own right, the fifth-year pro — playing for his fourth team — finally has earned some legitimate playing time in The Big Apple. And that’s all every player really wants.

Aldrich averages just 8.6 minutes a contest in his 157-game career, but first-year Knicks coach Derek Fisher (a former teammate of Aldrich in Oklahoma City) has leaned on the 26-year-old center of late.

Prior to this past month, the 2010 lottery pick had started twice in the NBA. A handful of N.Y. roster issues, though, pushed Aldrich into the Knicks’ starting lineup for six of the team’s last seven games.

That’s on the opposite end of the spectrum from his 12 DNP’s this season. However, Aldrich has averaged 10.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, 1.3 blocks and 2.1 assists, while hitting 59.6-percent of his shots in New York’s previous seven games — all losses.

“There have been a few stretches over
my career where I’ve had the
opportunity to play here or there,”
Aldrich told the N.Y. Times. “I take
the same approach every time that it
happens, which is go out there and
play hard, rebound, play defense and
score when given the opportunity.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNqZwu6w24I

Last week, the suddenly important post player scored a career-high 18 points at Sacramento, then pulled down 19 rebounds, another personal best, at Portland the next day.

While the fun-loving big man took some Internet flack for not getting involved in teammate Quincy Acy’s Christmas Day brawl, his coach and former teammate, Fisher, appreciates Aldrich’s work ethic and positivity.

“He’s a great guy to have on a team,”
Fisher told the N.Y Times. “He’s not a
guy that tries to always lead in a
vocal way, but he’s definitely become
somewhat of a leader just in his
approach and being an example of how
you work at what you do.”

No matter what comes next for the at times goofy New York big man, he’ll keep embracing life to the fullest and make others laugh when he can, which isn’t a bad scouting report to have.

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