It wasn't too long ago that there was alot of
Linning and Linsanity around the NY Knicks,
but now they are almost exactly where they
started after Jeremy Lin took New York City,
and the NBA by storm. All of that being said
I'm not ready to start pointing fingers on
who's fault it might be, or if this is a little
bit of a coincidence with the return of Carmelo
Anthony, but you can't help but see that things
have changed a bit.
I hate calling for a coaches job, I've done it,
but I hate doing it, and I won't do it here.
Mike D'Antoni is easy to pick on here because
many fans think that he should be the one to
fix their offensive struggles with Anthony in
the lineup, but the truth is D'Antoni never
asked for Carmelo Anthony to begin with, it was
Jim Dolan who force fed him to Donnie Walsh and
D'Antoni, and even though I don't want to call
out Carmelo either, the numbers don't lie.
You might wonder why he wouldn't want Anthony,
and that basketball is basketball, but apparently
this system that D'Antoni runs hasn't been a good
fit for this coach and player. Before Anthony's
return to the lineup the Knicks went from 7 games
under .500 to .500, and today find themselves at
six games under .500, in the middle of a six game
losing streak, and all those gains and momentum
just about lost.
Did the Knicks get too Melo? I think the answer
here is yes, but I also think it's fixable, IF
Melo wants to be part of the solution, AND if
D'Antoni can come up with enough adjustments to
make these parts work as one. The Knicks have
many good players on this team, and that is a
problem at times, but if Coach D'Antoni can make
sure he puts the lineup on the floor that best
matches up against the other team, logic will
tell you that if everyone is on board this will
work. The thing is, everything logical doesn't
always work that way. I heard NY Knicks TV man
and legend Walt "Clyde" Frazier say that he never
saw a team that got along as good as this bunch,
and that they seem to genuinely like each other,
well if that's the case, then this logic might
just work here.
Their are very few games left this season, and the
Knicks need to turn things around ASAP it's true,
but not just to make the playoffs, which I think
they will, but to avoid the seventh or eighth seed.
Should they land in the playoffs as either of those
two seeds, they better be hot and clicking as a unit,
because knocking off either Chicago or Miami to move
forward will prove to be more than a big task, and
they will need a little more Linsanity by the whole
team to get it done.
Tweet Don't Believe In Plays, Believe In Players - Al Davis
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