Hornacek smitten over Porzingis, believes he has top-5 potential

With Jeff Hornacek now serving as the new head coach of the New York Knicks, he'll be afforded the opportunity to work with Latvian phenom Kristaps Porzingis, and help mold him into an NBA superstar.

"He's going to be able to do a lot of things as he moves forward in his career, he's got an inside game, and outside game," Hornacek said during his introductory press conference Friday. "How is somebody going to guard him? Defensively he can help block shots and be a presence inside."

The 20-year-old center was projected to be a long-term project who would need at least a few years under his belt before contributing to the lowly Knicks. However, in his first season in The Big Apple, Porzingis became an overnight sensation, averaging a near double-double of 13.3 points and 9.1 rebounds during the first month of his career.

Based off of what he's seen, Hornacek believes the potential is there for the "PorzinGod" to be one of the top players in the league somewhere down the road.

"Why can't he be a top-5 player in this league? Why can't he be the best player in this league?" Hornacek said.

The next phase in Porzingis' development will be continuing the progress he made during his rookie campaign to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump. Hornacek is impressed by what he can already do on the hardwood, and with more experience and some fine-tuning of his skills, there's really no reason why Porzingis can't make even more of an impact in his second year with the franchise.

"You don't see a guy 7-foot-3 who can do multiple things," Hornacek said. "You can see him in some high pick-and-rolls in the sets we have. I still believe we can get him on the post if teams want to put a smaller guy on him and take advantage of his height from there."

"Is he 19 or 20? When you have a guy that's 20 years old and you can see what he can do already, there's going to be high expectations and we are going to help reach them. Most of the guys in this league come into their own at the 24-, 25-, 26-year-old range. So he's got such a bright future it's going to be off the charts for him."

Porzingis was named to the NBA All-Rookie First team after averaging 14.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks in 72 games for New York. He was also the runner-up in Rookie of the Year voting behind Karl-Anthony Towns of the Minnesota Timberwolves.