As the New York Knicks and the rest of the NBA wind down the 2017 regular season, the Knicks refuse to change their ways and continue to dominate headlines for all the wrong reasons as they have throughout the campaign. There have been abundant amounts of turmoil surrounding the Knicks with a good chunk of it being from the apparent disconnect between aging star forward Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks front office.
Specifically in that front office, President of Basketball Operations Phil Jackson has had the rockiest relationship with Melo, to say the very least. The two have spent nearly the entire season sending jabs at each other and worsening their toxic relationship to the point where it seems one of the two is going to have to make their way out of New York this summer.
With Phil Jackson as President and him being determined to run the triangle offense successfully around Kristaps Porzingis, the Knicks are reportedly determined to cut ties with Anthony. The differences between Melo and Jackson have been largely regarding the insistence of Jackson implementing his trademark triangle offense. The 10-time All-Star Anthony believes the more run and gun style of head coach Jeff Hornacek is better suited for the Knicks and wished the coach had stood strong on not switching to the triangle. Following from Marc Berman of the New York Post:
As every Knick tries to find a reason for the team’s collapse after Christmas, Carmelo Anthony added to the discussion, questioning the flipping back and forth from Jeff Hornacek’s speedy, modern offense to Phil Jackson’s moderately paced triangle…
“I think everybody was trying to figure everything out, what was going to work, what wasn’t going to work,’’ Anthony said in the locker room at the former Delta Center. “Early in the season, we were winning games, went on a little winning streak we had. We were playing a certain way. We went away from that, started playing another way. Everybody was trying to figure out: Should we go back to the way we were playing, or try to do something different?’’
Anthony made it crystal clear he was siding with the more dynamic offense of Hornacek:
“I thought earlier we were playing faster and more free-flow throughout the course of the game,’’ Anthony said. “We kind of slowed down, started settling it down. Not as fast. The pace slowed down for us — something we had to make an adjustment on the fly with limited practice time, in the course of a game. Once you get into the season, it’s hard to readjust a whole system.’’
With the team continuing to slump and not many positives on the horizon, at least regarding this season, it’s fair for Carmelo Anthony to question why the Knicks have failed to work all season. They have been as dysfunctional as any other team in the association and will require a culture change this offseason to try and bounce back from what’s been a disastrous campaign.
