In his infamous conference call that ended up with Hawks GM Danny Ferry repeating some bigoted things that now has his job in jeopardy, he also talked about Carmelo Anthony. And pretty much hit the nail on the head.
“He can shoot the s—— out of it, but he screws you up in other ways. So is he really worth the $20 million? I would argue if he plays the right way, absolutely.”
Ferry’s comments are pretty much the norm on Anthony, and that includes talking about him in the Knicks new triangle offense.
Phil Jackson echoed the same ideas about ‘Melo in the triangle as part of a long Q&A with the New York Post.Q: How and why will the triangle offense make Carmelo a better player?
A: It’ll give him opportunity to be a passer, a rebounder, and probably easier spots to score from than he’s had before. I think. I hope that’s true for a lot of the players….
And that’s where Carmelo’s gonna move forward this year in that situation — the ball can’t stop. The ball has to continually move. It moves, or goes to the hoop on a shot or a drive or something like that. In our offense, that’s part of the process of getting players to play in that rhythm.
When put in settings like the Olympic teams (he’s played in three, has two golds) Anthony has played within that kind of role and moved the ball. He trusted his teammates — but it’s easy to trust Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and players of that level. Can he trust Jose Calderon and J.R. Smith and Amare Stoudemire the same way?
The Knicks roster is a work in progress and a lot of triangle-friendly players need to be added. But ‘Melo is the key — he has to buy in, he has to play the right way, he has to be the change he wants to see. If ‘Melo says “screw this, I’m just taking over the game” he’s back to the situation that had him thinking about getting out of town this summer.
It drove Mike D’Antoni crazy how the ball movement stopped with ‘Melo touched the rock. We’ll see is Jackson and Derek Fisher can get through to him in a different way.