Watching Carmelo Anthony play basketball, if you’ve noticed, means you also probably see lots of smiling, sometimes even laughing when he’s making his way around the court. It’s one of Melo’s signatures.
There was nothing to smile about when it came to the Knicks’ franchise-worst 17-65 effort last season. The latest NBA GM survey not only projects the Knicks to win just 27 games this upcoming season, but Anthony was left out of the top six MVP candidates and did not receive a vote as a top small forward or power forward.
Anthony’s response to that is simply laughter.
From Marc Berman of the NY Post:
“I think we will be better than people predict,’’ Anthony said. “If you’re predicting 27 wins, I laugh at that. We use that as kind of motivation. But it’s a good thing to be under the radar.’’
We know by now that Anthony is going into the season with high expectations for himself and his new team. His confidence is surely magnified by his excitement to be back on the floor for his team — Anthony missed the second half of last season with a left knee injury. He also defended himself:
“I don’t care about that. It will be [a big year] — for sure it will be,’’ Anthony said. “I think they go off what they saw last. For me, I know where I stand in this league. For somebody else to say what I am or not, that’s way beyond me.’’
“Nobody cares what kind of year you had if you’re on a losing team,” Anthony said. “Regardless of if I average 30 [points] and we win 30-something games, it will still be a down year all the way around. Nobody cares about that. Everybody goes back to the 54-win season when we had a good team and were winning and everybody gets the pub and the shine. We’re going to be alright. I’m not concerned about myself at all.
At 31, Carmelo has to become something more than just an unstoppable scorer to propel himself and his team into new heights. The Knicks are going into this season with nothing to lose, and frankly, it should be difficult to regress from last season. Anthony’s overall mentality and leadership is more in question than anything else, and make no mistake, his team will need him to drop 30 on occasion in order to compete.
