Though Kristaps Porzingis’ arrival signals an optimistic future the New York Knicks haven’t had in years, they still have an All-Star whose peak is rapidly slipping away without a team in contention. Carmelo Anthony feels the pressure of the present, even as he embraces the future, which is why he says he’s committed to recruiting free agents to the Knicks this season.
“This summer is going to be interesting. I don’t have a choice. If we want this team to be better, we want to add pieces. I don’t have a choice but to go out there and do my job and try to get people to come here so they can see it from my perspective rather than everybody else’s perspective, seeing it from a player’s perspective.”
One of his targets is Rajon Rondo, the soon-to-be-free agent point guard with a pass-first, pass-second and pass-third mentality. ‘Melo knows he would get more and better shots with Rondo, and he also insists they could work together within the principles of Phil Jackson’s Triangle concept. The problem is, he’s not allowed to recruit Rondo until the season’s over. When speaking to the New York Post, however, he just couldn’t help himself.
“I don’t want to be tampering — I’ve heard he said he wouldn’t thrive in a system like this,” Anthony said of his fellow Oak Hill Academy alum. “I think he’d be perfect in a system like this. A system like this fits a guy like that. To have the ball in their hands and be able to run the offense, I think it fits well. I don’t know who’s telling him he don’t fit.
Melo’s desperation is understandable. It may feel like a new era for the Knicks with the explosion of Porzingis hysteria, but the franchise is still plagued by many of the same problems that have defined its period of mediocrity under owner James Dolan — primarily, its continual lack of draft picks with which to build a sustainably successful team.
Porzingis was the highest draft pick the Knicks owned since Patrick Ewing and is seen as a similar sort of savior figure, at least after everyone stopped their draft-night booing. But Ewing was more than 30 years ago, and there have been a lot of bad years that should have drawn other potential franchise-changing figures. Yet so many of those potential messiahs were casually traded away for the short term in ill-advised deals, perhaps most egregiously for Andrea Bargnani. The Knicks traded two unprotected first-round picks for him, well past when most around the league thought he could be a major contributor. That second pick is in this upcoming draft, and it will fall in the lottery somewhere.
So even with Porzingis, the Knicks will go into the offseason trying to sign veteran contributors to build a contender overnight, without anything but ‘Melo and KP, the bright lights of New York City and the Triangle offense — whatever that’s worth — to offer. You can understand why Anthony is so anxious to get started, but the league might have something to say about his comments.
(Via New York Post)
