mreinman wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/sports/basketball/if-you-read-phil-jacksons-mind-carmelo-anthony-is-in-small-type.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0By admittedly not consulting or even speaking with Carmelo Anthony during a rash of recent free-agent signings for the Knicks, what, exactly, was Phil Jackson trying to tell him?
Perhaps nothing, but given Jackson’s historically – shall we say – eccentric communications skills, more likely something.
Let’s make an educated guess:
With all due respect, Carmelo, it’s not all about you anymore. That was last summer, when you had the leverage, the freedom to hand-pick a competitive environment more to your liking. But you chose the extra money and the New York stage on which to build your personal brand. You signed on for a team rebuild, which came with no discernible or guaranteed timetable.
If you thought I was promising Marc Gasol, LaMarcus Aldridge or even Greg Monroe, you were mistaken, or deluded. If that wasn’t clear when you re-signed, it should have been by February, when the season had turned into a Zen catastrophe and I told the New York Times that “my experiment has fallen flat on its face.”
As team president, I am responsible but, face it, you weren’t quite an early most valuable player candidate, and then you were hurt and obsessed with the All-Star Game and now you’re the 31-year-old, surgically repaired leader of a 17-win team.
Not that I’m counting, but you also have been beyond the first round of the playoffs twice in 12 years. Your peers have noticed.
It’s like I told the beat guys out here in Vegas the other night: “There’s some longshots out there that we took. But the reality was we wanted what we got.”
Notice the well-parsed phrasing, how I didn’t say we got what we wanted when referring to Robin Lopez, your buddy Arron Afflalo and a few guys I’d actually never heard of until we resorted to Plan C, or D.
Nor were you thrilled, I understand, with the draft, wishing that we had traded down for another veteran player and had the last laugh – like Pat Riley in Miami – when an authentic American graduate of March Madness like Justise Winslow slipped all the way to No. 10.
Have you been watching summer league on television? Winslow is not going to soon be Jimmy Butler. D’Angelo Russell can’t dribble three feet without throwing the ball to a stranger. (LOL, Kobe.) These kids all look like the teenage novices they are.
If that is too late for your plan of winning a Knicks championship in your prime, my suggestion is that you embrace the reality that you not only signed up for, but helped to create.
That’s right, this franchise stripped itself of assets to acquire you back in 2011, when you made it clear to Mr. Dolan that you were going to get paid before the coming lockout and would do so in New Jersey and Brooklyn if need be. Poor Donnie Walsh was ordered to surrender everything to Denver except Walt Frazier’s wardrobe.
You could have waited to sign as a free agent for the sake of the franchise’s well-being – and yours by extension. We all want to earn but you did set the consequences in motion and, again, had a chance to escape them last summer. You didn’t. You stayed. Now deal with your decision, grow as a player and as a leader.
That’s the best way to begin recalibrating your enigmatic standing, the most positive advance you can make toward the rest of a career still rich in opportunity. Stop making it all about championship odds that would not be favorable unless you joined a small handful of teams, almost all of whom don’t need or want you.
Remember Scottie Pippen? His reputation in this sport grew exponentially in 1993-94, when Michael went on hiatus from the Bulls and Scottie led us to 55 wins and a near upset of the Patrick Ewing Knicks in the second round. For the record, that was also a supreme triumph of the triangle.
The beat guys have been pushing me for a 2015-16 prognostication, but, no thanks, I already made the mistake of flatly forecasting the playoffs last season. I only said that an improvement of 30 wins would be daunting. But imagine, Carmelo, if you set an example, lifted all those around you, carried our improved, though hardly formidable, cast to the seventh or eighth playoff spot in a conference that remains fluid at the lower end.
Think of how much more desirable we could be to next summer’s free agents, or you would be if we mutually decided the best thing was a trade.
In the meantime, I will continue to eschew the kind of tough talk demonstrated in Indianapolis by Larry Bird, when asked about Paul George’s reluctance on playing power forward.
“He don’t make the decisions around here,” Bird said.
Such a hayseed, that Larry. Let’s join hands, work together. Call your new teammates. Take the young Latvian under your wing, out to dinner. Make sure he orders dessert.
Flip the popular news media spin of how the Knicks have failed you by not delivering a companion star. As a student of history, let me paraphrase John F. Kennedy: ask not what your franchise can do for you; ask what you can do for your franchise.
I'm a huge Syracuse and Knicks fan which makes me a huge Melo fan but i'm at the point now to where i agree with this and say to Melo......either get on the train or jump off cause we're moving forward and things are looking up for the New York Knicks for the first time in a long time. Good article.
7/15/2015 9:04 PM