I think it can be fairly said that the early returns on the Carmelo trade have been a disaster. For the Knicks, that is. The Nuggets and our old heroes are thriving in Denver. No talk of adjustments. No ‘it’s going to take time’ excuses. No massaging of egos. Just good team basketball and winning. Gotta love the irony there. Instant karma.
What Knicks fans are left with is something resembling a pickup basketball team with two great offensive players and some other much less talented guys reduced to passing them the ball and watching. The lack of chemistry is startling. Before the trade the offense flowed fairly organically. Now numbers (7 and 1) are being called and all offensive cohesion has been lost. D’Antoni handed over the offense to Billups to run something he and Carmelo are comfortable with, yet Melo and Billups say they still aren’t comfortable running the offense. Huh?!
The defense is equally, if not more, offensive. Amare gets one foul and stops playing with any defensive aggression. Carmelo only seems to put effort into his defense when he’s playing someone he deems on his level (Lebron, Pierce, etc). And the gaping hole in the paint still hasn’t been resolved (sorry, Jared Jeffries).
All the while, fans are being told to relax, take some Prozac and be assured that things will work out. The message being conveyed by the coach and team amount to this: “Hey, we know this team is horrible to watch. We know it’s only been 18 games (actually that’s almost a quarter of the season), but hang on! Keep wasting your time, keep paying astronomical prices to watch incredibly frustrating, terrible basketball. It’ll all be worth it when we, at best, make it to the second round of the playoffs!! (uh, basically, not much better than what the team’s ceiling was pre-trade.) Besides, you’ve only been stuck watching horrible crap for the last decade, all while being fed false promises and potential over and over and over again. And on second thought, maybe you should just wait until next year… Sound good?”
The qualifying and excuses coming from D’Antoni on down AND the pouting and whining from Melo has been absolutely nauseating. It’s time to pull it together. Immediately. Knicks fans have been subject to enough abuse.
