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Carmelo Anthony Must Be A Part of the Future In New York

By Sean Linhares

Nov 25, 2015; Orlando, FL, USA; New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony (7) signals with three fingers during the second half of a basketball game against the Orlando Magic at Amway Center. The Magic won 100-91. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 25, 2015; Orlando, FL, USA; New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony (7) signals with three fingers during the second half of a basketball game against the Orlando Magic at Amway Center. The Magic won 100-91. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports /
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The New York Knicks have gotten off to a surprisingly solid start and if the team plans on building off that success, Carmelo Anthony must be a key part of team president Phil Jackson’s future plans.

Coming into this season, many fans of the New York Knicks agreed that the Phil Jackson-era in New York had gotten off to a rough start, to say the least.

After winning only 17 games in 2014-15 — a franchise worst — the Knicks set out for a top overall pick and a big free agency haul during last offseason.

They got neither.

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Jackson failed to secure top targets Greg Monroe, LaMarcus Aldridge or DeAndre Jordan in free agency and the Knicks would drop to the fourth overall selection in the draft after an unlucky lottery pick (I’m willing to blame Steve Mills for that, considering he was the one to grab the ping pong ball).

Rather than make the quick fix fans had expected, Jackson would “settle” for a free agency class headlined by veterans Robin Lopez and Arron Afflalo, then take the relatively unknown commodity of Kristaps Porzingis in the draft, a decision that was met with a plethora of boos on draft day.

Amazingly though, things have actually worked out for Jackson and the Knicks.

Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /

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Lopez has been a consistent defensive presence in the starting lineup, Afflalo has given New York a steady scoring presence, and Porzingis has of course become an early season candidate for Rookie of the Year while also becoming a fan favorite.

While this is still a team with a long road ahead of them until they can be considered legitimate contenders in the suddenly competitive Eastern Conference, the Knicks have been an extremely pleasant surprise, getting back to .500 at 14-14 after Saturday night’s victory over the Chicago Bulls.

Before this start though, there was a belief that Phil Jackson would have to completely rip down the franchise in order to build towards the future. He had already started that process during the embarrassing 2014-15 campaign, trading Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith to the Cleveland Cavaliers for virtually nothing in return.

However, after what was a disappointing offseason in the eyes of many fans, there was a quiet belief that star player Carmelo Anthony would be dealt at some point this season.

Melo had been rumored to be extremely upset over Jackson’s decision to draft Porzingis, plus was considered to be a selfish player that would refuse to play within the triangle offense because he wanted the ball in isolation situations as much as possible.

Well, it turns out that just about all of that was wrong.

Carmelo has forged an incredible relationship with Porzingis, saying recently in an interview with Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports that “nothing can come between” he and the Latvian sensation. Anthony has backed those words up with his play alongside Kristaps, as the two have been the Knicks best on-court duo this season.

With Anthony and Porzingis on the court, the Knicks are outscoring opponents by 3.4 points, good for the third-highest on the team. More important has been the fluidity the two play with. Below isn’t a direct pass from Anthony to KP, but the screen from Melo allows Kristaps to spring open for the three ball.

That’s the type of play the shows true chemistry, as both men are willing to move off the ball in order to set the other up for easy buckets.

Plays like that have become commonplace with Carmelo this season, as Anthony as slowly shed the notion of him being a selfish ball hog. Screens like that are nice, but Melo’s willingness to pass — as well as his talent at doing so — have helped the transformation even more.

Here we see Melo in an iso situation, his favorite, but instead of backing the defender down and either settling for a contested fadeaway or driving inside, Anthony dished out an absolute dime to Arron Afflalo for the wide open three.

Seeing Anthony become more of a facilitator has been a lot of fun, but at the end of the day this is still a guy who will go down as one of the games best pure scorers of all time. Luckily, that hasn’t suffered this year.

While his statistics have dropped to some extent — Anthony is averaging only 21.5 points on 17.9 field-goal attempts per game, both the lowest since his second season in the league in 2004-05 — Melo has begun to find his shooting stroke recently, including a 37-point performance against the Portland Trail Blazers on Dec. 12 and 27 Saturday night against the Bulls.

Regardless of the drop in points per game, Anthony can still get himself to the rim better than almost anyone in the league, as seen below.

It’s seriously just not fair for a 6’8″, 240-pound small forward to have those types of moves, first to work around the screen from Kyle O’Quinn and then to cross up an excellent defender in Joakim Noah. Just absurd.

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The days of Carmelo Anthony trade rumors are long gone and with the transformation he’s made this season, it’s now completely fair to discuss Anthony being a major part of the Knicks future.

The formerly ball-dominant Melo was seen as being incapable of attracting fellow stars to New York, much less win an NBA championship. But with this sudden change in philosophy from Carmelo, both of those things suddenly seem possible.

With the pedigree of his name and sudden willingness to play team basketball, plus the relationship with future superstar Porzingis, Anthony absolutely must be a piece of the New York Knicks future plans.

While Porzingis continues to grow and hopefully reach his seemingly limitless potential, Anthony can be the mentor and leader of the Knicks while also acting as an established star for potential free agents to want to play alongside.

With Kristaps as the future and this new Melo as the now, the New York Knicks would suddenly become a hot commodity for young free agents, a stark contrast to the past decade or so for New York.

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Of course, the only way that can happen is if Jackson keeps Anthony in his plans for the future, allowing him to continue growing into the consistent veteran presence he seems to be becoming.

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