My uncle is twice my age. For the last five years, I have had quite the height advantage on him, too. And yet, I’ve never beaten him in a game of one-on-one. Perhaps it’s intimidation from the Allan Houston jersey he wears for every one of our battles—he bleeds orange and blue, from the Garden’s glory days. He, like many other nostalgic Knick fans, always held out hope for brighter days and a return to the Knickerbocker buzz that took over Manhattan in the ‘90s.
They thought that return would come under Isaiah Thomas’ regime, but that ship sank faster than the Titanic. From Larry Brown to Lenny Wilkens, Knicks regimes ended quicker than they started – until Mike D’Antoni, a casualty of then-Phoenix GM Steve Kerr’s “defense wins championships” reign, fell into their laps in 2008.
Thus, after D’Antoni tendered his resignation, even the most hopeful of Knicks fans were distraught; my uncle at the surprising forefront.
“Season’s done,” he wrote to me in an email.
D’Antoni proved to be a special kind of coach – he couldn’t contend for the playoffs with the Knicks’ gutted roster, but kept them entertaining and even established the mirage of Chris Duhon as a starting point guard. He needed some help and got it in the vaunted summer of 2010, netting former Sun Amar’e Stoudemire in free agency.
Three years later, D’Antoni is leaving in the midst of more New York drama, that of the Carmelo Anthony variety. The coach’s resignation marks a culmination of rising tension between a superstar and coach that hit a crescendo. It reached that level because pundits could not quite come to a consensus on the Knicks’ woes. Then, with Carmelo out with a groin injury, the Jeremy Lin-sational winning streak that followed showed just what D’Antoni ball could produce.
That Garden buzz was back for the first time since Anthony first became a Knick. To be fair, it had never truly left. Unfortunately, however, neither did the stubbornness that compounded Knick ownership throughout the past decade. They abided by Isaiah Thomas’ mentality of not admitting to personnel blunders, but rather threw money and draft picks to find new overpaid veterans who also flamed out.
With that in mind, it was incomprehensible for owner James Dolan to turn around and trade Carmelo to preserve D’Antoni ball—he did, after all, give up an arm, a leg, and an Italian sharpshooter to acquire him.
To be fair, I can’t blame Dolan here either. I still believe Carmelo can and will be the answer in New York. As the franchise’s centerpiece, the Knicks must build around him. The pieces around the team’s stars—Jeremy Lin, Steve Novak, J.R. Smith, Landry Fields—seem natural in a high-octane offense, but they need to adapt. Anthony, a superstar, should not have to drastically alter his game to suit the strengths of role players around him.
The other two pieces of the New York triumvirate can succeed in a style that suits Anthony as well. Tyson Chandler is just coming off a championship season where he led a similar, defensive-minded, superstar-first team in Dallas. Amar’e Stoudemire’s game is versatile enough to adapt as well—he played for much of his first two seasons and from 2008-2010 without the guidance of D’Antoni’s “seven seconds or less” philosophy.
The end to this honeymoon was rapidly approaching anyway. Perhaps yesterday’s abrupt announcement was not the timely conclusion fans were looking for, but looming divorces like this can erupt at any time. Take a look at Jerry Sloan and Deron Williams’s falling-out as the prime example.
For now, the Knicks will have to adjust on the fly, in a manner all too reminiscent of last year’s upheaval at the trade deadline. Maybe my uncle is correct in declaring the season dead and gone. As it was, Anthony was trying to adjust to a completely new unit featuring Lin, Smith, a rejuvenated Novak, and Baron Davis.
In a few years, though, this will be remembered as a rough patch for a successful playoff contender. This group may never bring a ring back to Madison Square Garden, as was the hope before, but they have a lot of promising basketball ahead of them.
For now, the organization has to decide whether interim coach Mike Woodson is the long-term answer behind the clipboard. If Sloan or Phil Jackson comes knocking, though, Woodson may simply be the next casualty. Knicks fans can use that time to come to grips with the Carmelo-New York marriage. Only a year ago, both sides were clamoring for it, and with good reason. Now, both sides must realize they’re in it for the long haul, for better or for worse. Label me optimistic, but I think Melo and company will ultimately provide more good times than bad.
