New York Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek strongly indicated Tuesday that exiled center Joakim Noah will not be back with the team.
“We’ve moved on. He’s ready to move on and maybe have an opportunity somewhere else,” Hornacek said following the Knicks’ first practice after the All-Star break.
Noah and the Knicks have mutually agreed that the veteran forward be away from the team indefinitely following a heated argument between him and the coach at practice in late January.
“That’s something that happened three weeks ago, four weeks ago. We handled that thing with Jo,” he said. “It’s not finalized because he’s still on the roster. We’ve dealt with that situation. There’s really nothing more to say about it.”
Before the Knicks jettisoned him, Noah and Hornacek had to be separated during a West Coast practice session in late January, league sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Noah had become vociferous toward Hornacek in the aftermath of a brief appearance in a Jan. 23 game and engaged the coach verbally in practice the next day.
In hindsight, San Francisco should’ve done whatever it could to give Garoppolo a deal then. He had leverage but was still had fewer than 100 career passes. But the 49ers got a good look at what they had, and his play in December launched his value through the roof.
Option three just couldn’t happen. And giving a quarterback a franchise tag would’ve only meant a large price tag and the threat of free agency still on the horizon.
Simply put: Garoppolo wasn’t going to get any cheaper. Barring injury or a staggering drop-off in his quality of play, the only choice was to give him a contract that he’s willing to take instead of testing his value on the open market.
Super Bowl XLIX was the Patriots’ second comeback in the playoffs following the 2014 season. It looked like they might not advance when the Patriots were trailing the Ravens 28-14 in the third quarter.