Behind the spearmint green two-story house, past the two brick sheds and above-ground pool, there's a basketball hoop. The Plexiglass backboard is fastened to a network of rusted metal piping that clambers out of four concrete feet planted to the ground. Grass grows below the basket now, but for years there was half of a transplanted hardwood basketball court here, the materials salvaged from a weathered public court set to be demolished.

This is where the crown jewel of Latvia, 20-year-old Knicks forward Kristaps Porzingis, learned to play basketball. He spent hour after hour here with his oldest brother, honing his crossover and refining the release on his jump shot so it would pass with a clink through the chain-link net. That was before he traveled two and a half thousand miles from Liepaja, this town of 70,000 by the Baltic Sea, to play professionally in Spain at the age of 15. And it was before he was the next great hope of a storied NBA franchise.

The jerry-rigged hardwood was also his favorite place in the world. "The wooden floor, the basket, the chain net—that was my church," he says, waving a few spindly fingers towards the window.

Diàna Markosian

We're seated on a couple of heather grey sectional sofas in his parents' living room. Well, I'm sitting: Porzingis, at 7'3", is sprawled across the shorter segment of the L, his gangling limbs stretching off into the next time zone in every direction. There aren't many couches (or beds, or suit jackets, or doorways) that can accommodate his stature. Even this one, in the home of a family of basketball giants—his two brothers and his father, all former pros, are all at least 6'6"—comes up short. For anyone else, this might be an uncomfortable position, goofy even, for an interview. But there's a poise, a sense of self-possession, about Porzingis.

"He's constant calm," says his oldest brother, Janis, 35. "He's twenty years old with all these cameras in his face, but he's cool. People say he's got swagger."

At home, in his parents' living room. Diàna Markosian

Their home, at the end of a long street of graying asphalt, is far from the summer bustle at the center of Liepaja, Latvia's third-largest city, which takes up just 23 square miles. The town does not taper off into suburbs or outskirts; there are buildings, and then there are not. Vast green fields, and the deep forests that cover more than half the country, make up the ground with the horizon.

There's another court a five-minute drive from the house, in a Soviet-era housing complex—an unmarked square of asphalt where Porzingis played with his friends growing up. By 12 years old, says Rihard Ozolnieks, a buddy from childhood, Porzingis was already 6'1". I ask Ozolnieks if there was a time he knew Porzingis could be a truly great player. He responds before I can finish the question: "All the time," he says.

Exactly one year ago today, Porzingis sat around a table with his parents and two older brothers at the Barclays Center, home to the Brooklyn Nets, waiting to be drafted by an NBA franchise. The league had invited him and 18 other players to sit in the "green room" for the ceremony—a Golden Globes-style setup with easy access to the stage. The honor, reserved for those the league regards as top draft prospects, threw him right in the middle of the buzzing hive of New York fans filling the seats above on every side.

He wore a cabernet suit with a shawl collar, a white shirt, and a skinny black tie—a top pick's get-up. And Porzingis was pretty sure he'd be among the top picks. Karl-Anthony Towns from the University of Kentucky was the consensus choice to be selected first, but there were murmurs that the Lakers, with the second pick, had their eyes on Porzingis. There were more than murmurs about the Knicks, who would pick fourth. He had said he wanted to play in New York in the run-up, but now it was out of his hands.

Los Angeles went for Ohio State guard D'Angelo Russell with the second pick, and Philadelphia selected Jahlil Okafor, a 7-foot center out of Duke, with the third. That's when the madness began on television—and on Twitter.

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The talking heads rattled off the warnings and the stats about previous top European picks who went bust, like Darko Milicic from Serbia (a country closer to Libya than Latvia) and Andrea Bargnani (Italy, even farther away). They cracked their Dolph Lundgren jokes. Pick Justise Winslow, they all pleaded, referring to the versatile 6'7" forward out of Duke. We know him.

"With the fourth pick in the 2015 NBA Draft," league commissioner Adam Silver said gingerly into the microphone, "The New York Knicks select Kristaps Porzingis from Liepaja, Latvia." Then, almost apologizing: "He last played for Sevilla… in Spain."

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The hometown crowd's boos did not ring out so much as sink from the rafters, blanketing the room, as Porzingis rose from his seat and kissed his mother on the cheek. A young fan appeared to be sobbing when the camera panned to him. As Porzingis made his way to the stage, the ritual flogging began on social media. It was another Knicks blunder, an occasion for self-pity for some and schadenfreude for others. A meme made the rounds of a frog wearing Knicks gear attempting to commit suicide by sticking a fork in an outlet. At home, I was yelling at my TV and joining the cyber pitchfork brigade like anyone else. There had been more than a few European flops after all, and this was the Knicks—the sporting embodiment of Murphy's Law.

"We saw articles everyday on Twitter, things people tagged me in saying that I'm going to be another bust," Porizingis says. "We knew the European players that went to the NBA and had great careers, and we knew the ones that went and had terrible careers or finished early. We were prepared for a lot of criticism."

It never seemed personal for him: people over here just didn't know him, didn't know what he could do. The only solution was to show them.

He didn't waste much time, scoring 16 points in his NBA debut against the Milwaukee Bucks. By his fourth appearance, against the dynastic San Antonio Spurs, he had his first double-double. The kid who Fran Fraschilla, ESPN's most optimistic analyst, had said would take years to come good won Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month to start the season, then added the next three in a row through January. Along the way, those famously fickle New Yorkers embraced him unequivocally. Custom jerseys with "PORZINGOD" across the back popped up in the Madison Square Garden stands, and the feeling began to take hold that the pitiful Knicks had found a diamond in the Latvian rough.

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"There are franchise players to build around, that have championship-level talent, skill, basketball IQ, and character," Jeff Van Gundy, the ESPN analyst and former NBA coach, told me in April. "Those guys are rare. I think the Knicks have one in Porzingis."

It has been a gravity-defying start to NBA life for the young man from Latvia, one that's catapulted him from maligned nobody to the future of the franchise in basketball Mecca. The 18,000 seats at Madison Square Garden are a long way away from the hoop with the chain link net out back. He didn't exactly fly direct.

"The wooden floor, the basket, the chain net—that was my church."

Just behind the Porzingis' little house, there's an oval wooden table surrounded by four chairs, and a stack of plastic seats nearby for when everyone is home, like they are this week. All five members of the Porzingis family—father, mother, two sons in their thirties, and a millionaire professional basketball player—are staying here during the first KP6 Basketball Camp, Kristaps' four-day training camp for young Latvian players. Here, on the brick patio swaddled by a cocoon of tree branches, is where they have breakfast. "Mom usually does scrambled eggs, some sandwiches, boiled eggs, some salmon, some cottage cheese," Janis says. "If we don't have to run somewhere, we can sit there for two hours. That place is kind of sacred."

"We just sit there and talk," says Porzingis. "Those are the little moments that are fundamental to our family."

At lunch out back with (R-L) his father, mother, Martins, and his former agent in Spain. Diàna Markosian

So fundamental, in fact, that when he moved to New York, the whole family went with him. For five months at the start of the season, they all lived at a house in Westchester, close to the Knicks practice facility. (It's safe to say he's the only one on the Knicks roster who began last season with this kind of living arrangement.) Porzingis and his brothers split their time between Westchester and an apartment in Manhattan. Porzingis is only in the city when he has to be, for endorsement work and events. His brothers are there far more often—Janis, who played professional basketball in different leagues around Europe for more than a decade, is his agent, while Martins, 33, was a pro in Latvia and serves as his manager.

"I don't love the off-court stuff," Porzingis says, "But I know it's necessary. It takes a lot of weight off my shoulders when they're able to organize everything, and I just have to show up and focus on basketball."

The New York move was not the first time the family has traveled for this game. When Porzingis played in Spain, the family would pile into an eight-seater Mercedes microbus and drive all the way through Europe to catch one of his games. "It was a crazy drive," Martins says. "Like forty-something hours. We would pack all the grandmothers in there with us," he adds.

Surely, I nudge him, having his family in New York for support helped Porzingis get off to that flying start. "I think I would have been fine without them as well," he says, reminding me that he lived alone in Spain as a 15-year-old. "I can handle stuff by myself."

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Money was tighter then—his father had retired from basketball years before and become a bus driver in town—and uprooting the whole clan wasn't as realistic. Early on, Sevilla's team doctor diagnosed him with anemia, an iron deficiency that might have been due to his diet back home as well as his extraordinary growth, and he spent months battling fatigue and pain in the scorching Spanish heat before the treatments kicked in. He and Janis credit this stage for his mental toughness and his willingness to test his limits, and wonder aloud whether he would have made it this far without those trials early on.

His brothers also flew in constantly to check on their rapidly growing baby brother. Janis accompanied Porzingis to his first pro tryout in Seville, and spent countless hours watching tape of Kevin Garnett and LaMarcus Aldridge, big men who were mobile and could step outside and knock down shots. Janis started what you might call media training when Porzingis was 14. They watched clips of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan giving interviews, studying "how to answer questions, when to smile, when not to smile, stuff like that," says Martins. "It sounds a little weird, but you have to prepare for that if you go to the NBA." Janis also pushed his brother to take extra English classes.

Porzingis and his brother, Janis, stretching before practice. Diàna Markosian

"Janis was always two, three steps ahead," Porzingis says. "I was like, 'Oh my god, I have to do all this stuff? But now I see how it's helping me. Janis was working on drills, telling me what type of player I should be. This is the first summer where I can finally see myself and the type of player I am." He can now spot the holes in his own game—the mark, his brother says, of a true professional.

"It's very possible that everything that Janis wasn't able to achieve, he wants Kristaps to achieve," says Talis, their father, through a translator. He is a big man, mostly bald with a white moustache, who has a disarming gentleness about him. A semi-pro in the Soviet Union, he only ever learned Latvian and Russian. His two older sons speak those and English fluently; his youngest, born a year after the Soviet army left Latvia, never learned Russian.

The 15 years that separate Porzingis from his oldest brother straddle the fall of the Berlin Wall, an epoch in this part of the world. Janis has seen things that Kristaps never will, and his eyes betray it. He was a young boy when Latvia was a Soviet satellite, and he remembers the terrible 90s, when the country struggled to adapt to the market economy. Its industrial sector imploded, and for years everything, including food, was scarce. Porzingis can't remember much from those trials, but he knows the story. "We went through tough times," he says. "We didn't always have hot water or electricity."

"Kristaps was a 90s boy," Janis tells me, as we sit on the bright orange couches outside the Olympic Center gym. "He is different. We had another brother that died when he was a year and a half old. And then three years later, Kris was born," he says, his voice cracking. "He's the prince." His hands shoot up to his eyes, and he quickly excuses himself.

In the weight room at the Olympic Center in Liepaja. Diàna Markosian

There were signs in Spain that the plan was coming to fruition. But it was two years ago that everyone you ask—friends, family, coaches, anyone there to see it—will tell you that he made it absolutely clear he was headed to the next level. "When I was eighteen and I won the European Championship," he says, referring to the 2014 edition of the under-18 national team competition, "That's when I realized I had an opportunity to play in the NBA one day."

It took two years to seize that opportunity, and two entries in the draft. He withdrew his name at the last second in 2014, his first year of eligibility, despite interest from a number of clubs, including the Oklahoma City Thunder. "My agency wanted to sign me up to test the waters," he explains, "But I knew I wanted to stay one more year in Spain for sure, no matter what, to get stronger and get more experience. Then I would be ready. So that was my decision—to pull out."

That decision proved a wise one, as he hit the ground running on basketball's biggest stage a year later. Apparently, that's exactly what this family expected: Last summer, he and his brothers began to plan this week's camp before he had played a single minute in the NBA.

Kyle O'Quinn of the New York Knicks is in Latvia. So are Kevin Seraphin and Sacha Vujacic, along with a few of Porzingis' former teammates from Spain, at the 2000-seat gym in Liepaja's Olympic Center for his basketball camp. The event, named for Kristaps' initials and the number he wears on the Knicks, is a blend of coaching course and scouting combine for a select group of 21 Latvian boys ages 14 to 16. The camp was financed by the Latvian tourism board, which also brought me out for it. In addition to the players, there are pro coaches from Latvian basketball and the NBA.

They're not looking for "complete players, ones who are dominating in youth groups, but you can tell they're not going to grow or get much better," Porzingis says. "We're trying to see the potential. This is a bigger stage [for them] that can lead them to something more."

With a group of campers at the Olympic Center gym. Diàna Markosian

Porzingis asked the pros if they wanted to come to work out, scrimmage, or just hang out. They will also provide an example to the kids, and make their blossoming goal—reaching that level—seem a little less distant. Of course, no one has accomplished more in that regard than Porzingis.

"People see what Kristaps has done and they believe there's a way they can make it," says Normunds Atvars, who manages the Olympic Center. "A couple of 14, 15-year-olds went to Spain this year, because that's how Kristaps did it." They're starting to believe outside Latvia as well: There are more scouts from Spain and Italy and elsewhere coming through than ever before, looking for the next Porzingis.

A native son on the cusp of NBA stardom is big news in any locality, but there's a particular surge of feeling here in Latvia, a nation of under 2 million, roughly the size of West Virginia, that has spent the better part of the last thousand years being trampled on by its far bigger neighbors: Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Russian Empire, the Third Reich, and, for more than a half-century, the Soviet Union. Even now, the struggle for self-determination and identity persists: the current president was elected on a platform of taking on Vladimir Putin and Russian aggression. In a post-Crimea world, the threat to Latvia—where the population is one-quarter ethnic Russians—is very real.

"We went through tough times. We didn't have much to eat. We didn't always have hot water or electricity."

Porzingis has returned to a nation transfixed by his success. Latvians wake up at 4AM local time to watch regular season Knicks games, then crawl into work like zombies. Every one of his games for New York makes the newspaper and the local news 4,000 miles away. Ask about their other sports idols, and Latvians will rattle off the names: Martins Dukurs, the reigning world champion and two-time Olympic silver medalist in skeleton; the dozen or so ice hockey stars who have played in the NHL. But Porzingis represents something more—the chance for a Latvian to become the biggest star in perhaps the world's greatest basketball market, and with that, the chance to make this Baltic nation a household name along with his own.

"I remember watching Friends growing up, and they would say, 'I have tickets to the Knicks game,'" says Kristers Krafts, a Liepaja native who works as a tour guide. "I barely knew what that was for a while, but now I think to myself, if it was filmed today, Kristaps might be in the episode."

Walking in his parents' neighborhood. Diàna Markosian

Back on the court, it's time for the pro scrimmage.

"He almost dropped Sacha on the first play!" Porzingis yells, delighted, after a young camper who earned a place on his team for the day nearly puts Sacha Vujacic, an 11-year NBA veteran, on the ground with an explosive crossover.

Even in this three-quarters-pace scrimmage, Porzingis plays with formidable intensity, and at his size, his skills and mobility are astonishing. His jab step is as sharp as some of the guards he's playing with, his pull up sudden and smooth. His drives to the basket, even with an opponent hanging on him, are firm and in control. At one point, a teammate hauls down a rebound and outlets to him. He pushes the ball for a dribble, looking to get out on the break, when a defender steps in front of him just before half court. In a flash he goes behind-the-back to his off-hand, breezing by the helpless opponent to open up the floor. He finds a teammate, fades out to the wing, gets it back, and sinks the three. This is not normal behavior for a 7-footer, but it's the kind of thing that's got New York—and the wider league—buzzing.

It was clear skies and sunny all week, but now it's overcast and dull for the opening day of the public court Porzingis financed. The morning mists that came sweeping off the Baltic have turned to a drizzle, but still, hundreds are gathered in the freshly-dug gravel, around the orange and blue hard court he has built in a beachside park in town.

"There are no good quality courts in Liepaja," Porzingis says. "There's nowhere for people to play. It's going to be huge for the city, for the kids to have somewhere they can play every day." Access to facilities was a problem for him as a kid, and it remains one for young Latvians today.

"They, over there—they came from 300 kilometers away," says Gunars Ansins, Liepaja's deputy mayor, pointing to a group beneath one of the baskets. "Those came from 500 km," he said, gesturing again. "This is a national event."

"People see what Kristaps has done and they believe there's a way they can make it."

There's a commotion, and suddenly the crowd parts in two waves to reveal a brand-new milk-white Mercedes sedan. Porzingis is in the driver's seat, and cranes his neck as he rolls through the mob to catch a glimpse of the scene outside, giggling in disbelief. The car comes to a stop behind the baseline, and sits there for a minute or two.

Then a towering figure in a white hat rises above the sea of people, a Knicks jersey draped over his shoulder. Children squeal and run for a better look, and then there's an eruption of applause. After Porzingis steps up at center court to make his remarks, he slings the jersey off his shoulder and presents it to the mayor. It's about three sizes too big, and flops down to his knees when he puts it on. Someone tosses Porzingis a ball, and he throws down a ceremonial slam to christen his new church. Then around 100 kids rush onto the court and straight to him.

Jack Holmes

"It's a dream come true for me to be an idol for those kids," Porzingis says after. "One little moment from my life that I spend with that kid, he might remember that for the rest of his life, that he met me that day when he was 10 years old."

The kids want photos and autographs. One teenager holds a weathered basketball high over the others, while another, slightly younger, gets the back of his iPhone signed. But they also give him things: a photo of a gym class lying out on the floor to spell his name, posters they had made and held high through the ceremony. Gifts for a returning hero.

"Latvians are shy," says Normunds, the Olympic Center manager. "We don't often ask for autographs. But with Kristaps, everyone wants a photo. I saw a 60-year-old man ask him to sign his basketball once."

Porzingis will return to the U.S. in a couple of weeks, to the sticky heat of Orlando for NBA Summer League. Unlike last summer, he doesn't have anything to prove—not until the real season starts, anyway. In the meantime, he'll motor back to that mint green house across town. Maybe he'll take a shot or two on the hoop out back, waiting for that cash-register clink to tell him it was money. He'll definitely take his seat on the L-shaped lounge, and gaze out through the window at what's always been his little slice of the world.