Melo-drama

What is wrong with the New York Knicks? In Feburuary the Knicks were possibly the most exciting team in the NBA. So far in March, they are a pitiful excuse for a team. The energy and excitement from the fans at Madison Square Garden has become looks of disgust and hollers of boo's. That is quite a transformation in so little time.

Going into the All Star Break the Knicks were 17-18. They had moved up to the seventh seed in the East after an impressive winning streak and the outbreak of Jeremy Lin. Now the Knicks are 18-23, and worse they have lost five games in a row. Yes, they lost to good teams like the Celtics, Spurs, Sixers, and Mavericks, but in every single game the Knicks had opportunities to win and failed to seize any one of them.

The Mavericks game was really unbelievable. The Knicks were losing badly in the fourth quarter when all of a sudden it became very interesting. Bench players like Steve Novak, and Iman Shumpert put in good defense and started to go on a run. Led by Amar'e Stoudemire, the Knicks miraculously managed to take the lead by a point after a terrific run. Dallas followed by calling a timeout. During the course of that timeout, the Mavericks put starters like Dirk Nowitzki back in the game, but also the Knicks put all of their starters back in the game and sat Novak and Shumpert. The very players that sparked the run. Needless to say the Knicks showed pitiful desire to steal a victory. Dallas put away the Knicks and won by ten.

That's one of many recent Knicks games that were truley disgusting. Yesterday though, it gets even more horrendous. The Knicks were playing the Sixers back at the Garden after a pitiful road trip. The Knicks were losing badly in the second half when once again bench players showed a little fire and made the game interesting. Only this time, head coach Mike D'Antoni decided to leave the bench players in to conclude the game while starters like Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire sat on the bench. The Knicks lost yet again, and following the game this sparked controversy.

Carmelo Anthony's response to him not coming back out to finish the fourth quarter was, "I really don't know what the coach's mindset was, maybe he was trying to save us for tomorrow, I'm not sure, that's something to ask him. I was fine, I guess he was saving me for tomorrow's game, that was the mindset out there."

Mike D'Antoni said, "Collectively our spirits not good, our defense is not very good at all, we just didn't do what we were supposed to do, and we've got to solve that somehow." It is clear that people are pouting and unhappy with the teams recent lack of success. Only it seems like people are pointing fingers as opposed to manning up individually to the failure. Tyson Chandler (the man with the ring) said it best, "It's not a team and the current team members are not accepting the assignment given to them."

What's happening here is the Knicks have lots of individual talent but no one understand their roles with the team. That is mostly on the coach. Mike D'Antoni needs to stop thinking about gameplan and different systems and just focus on team chemistry and encouraging the right thing from different players. Also, Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire are both trying to be the leader of this team. Neither of them are it, Tyson Chandler should rightfully be the leader of this team. If that didn't come across their minds while they witnessed Chandler accepting his championship ring in Dallas then it never will.

Plain and simple, the Knicks are not a team. They have more than enough talent to be successful and yet they are far from it. The Knicks were able to have success with Melo and Amar'e out of the lineup because their ego's weren't clashing. They were able to play team basketball and run the floor the way Mike D'Antoni wanted them to.

Carmelo Anthony is more of a problem to this Knicks team than Amar'e Stoudemire is. He simply doesn't get it. The fact that when he is deliberately benched and simply thinks it's because the coach is saving him for tomorrow shows how self-centered and cocky he is. Yes, Melo led the team in points, but in a loss so who cares. His shot selection has been terrible, and that's because Carmelo thinks he has to lead the team in wins. Melo wants to win just as much as anybody on this team but he truley believes that in order for that to happen he has to put the team on his back every single night. That's not winning basketball, that's not team basketball, and that's certainly not even possibly a minor thought of championship basketball.

In order for the Knicks to become relevant again Mike D'Antoni needs to encourage team unity and have every single player understand how they can make the team better as a whole. That is a tall task, but right now all Mike D'Antoni has done was change up rotations in the lineup once in a while.

It's easy for Knicks fans to get angry and blame Melo and maybe even say get rid of him if the team continues to struggle. Fans will claim that the Melo trade last year was a bust and that he's a ball hog and the whole nine yards. But truthfully Knicks fans do not need another Stephon Marbury. What Knicks fans need is a head coach with every intent of taking the Knicks to the promise land. Knicks fans have not had that since Jeff Van Gundy.

Now it is true that in sports sometimes the authority of owners can undermine the power of head coaches. It's possible that can be the case with James Dolan. How many coaches have these guys seen? Larry Brown, Isaiah Thomas, Mike D'Antoni, do none of these guys know basketball? It's truley difficult to even speak of Isaiah Thomas' name but the point is Dolan has seen numerous head coaches. The last truley good head coach the Knicks had was Jeff Van Gundy. During his time as assistant coach in the early nineties, and eventually head coach from March 8th 1996 until his abrupt resignation on December 8th, 2001. During that time the Knicks were a disturbing force of nature, wreaking havoc in the league year after year. His resignation was a sad day for Knicks fans, because since then the Knicks have been a complete joke.

Why would Van Gundy abruptly resign as Knicks head coach after so much success. His resignation remains a mystery, but he claims he could not do all he felt he needed to do to help the team win. What could that possibly mean? Salary cap problems the team was going through, or was someone preventing him from doing his job? It's very possible the interference from the owners or people of higher authority in the Knicks organization was giving him problems. And perhaps that's why the Knick have failed to generate a season in which a playoff series was won since 2000.

This blog has digressed and raised some speculations, but the fact is the Knicks are far from what they should be. The players are serious under achievers do to their inability to coexist with their teammates. This goes particularly for Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire.

Knicks players need to understand that changes need to be made, or changes will be made.

Still plenty of games left. Maybe the Knicks can get hot again. Pray that it does or the Garden will become a serious hostile environment that Knicks fans are all too familiar with.