Phil Jackson has patently established he is not the smartest guy in the room. The Knicks’ president is unquestionably intelligent, but by persistently channeling his inner Donald Trump, creating diversions in an attempt to deflect attention from the substantive issues that really ail his franchise, Jackson is presenting himself as imprudent and obtuse, and isn’t fooling anyone.
When Jackson’s former assistant coach and longtime confidant, Charley Rosen, recently asserted in a column he wrote on the website FanRag Sports that above all else “the only sure thing is that Carmelo Anthony has outlived his usefulness in New York,” the assumption by many, most importantly Anthony, was that those words were flowing through Rosen from Jackson.
Poking at Anthony serves no purpose other than to create an illusion that the Knicks’ shortcomings are essentially attributable to the team’s best player. On the surface, it seems as if Jackson is strategically—childishly is the more appropriate characterization—trying to force Anthony out of New York, framing his propaganda to make it appear as if Anthony, who has a no-trade clause in his contract, is passively-aggressively looking for a way out of the Knicks’ losing situation.
But after the Knicks lost another disheartening game, falling in the last seconds to the Chicago Bulls by 108-107 at Madison Square Garden on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Anthony emphasized his desire to remain a Knick.
“I’ve proven that over the years, day in and day out,” he said in the Knicks’ locker room. “Regardless of what’s going on that’s surrounding this team, any talk, anything, I’ve still showed that me being here, coming to work every day, being professional … I still remain positive about that.”
Yesterday in Boston, standing on the court of the TD Garden arena at the Knicks’ shoot around, Anthony reiterated his steadfastness to the media.
“I’m committed, like I told y’all the other night,” Anthony said. “I don’t think I have to keep saying it. Right now my focus is playing basketball and staying with [my teammates] because a lot of these guys never dealt with kind of all of this stuff before, especially being in a market like New York.”
The Knicks didn’t enter their game against the Celtics last night 18-24 and in crisis, having lost 11 of their last 13, because of Anthony. He was averaging 22.2 points per game, 3.1 assists and 6 rebounds, close to or identical to his career averages of 24.8, 3.1 and 6.6. They were six games under .500 because they are horrific on the defensive end of the court, allowing 108.3 points per game, 25th in the 30-team league.
Still, some fans and media have fallen for the Anthony-is-the-problem narrative and are intent on creating the perception that Kristaps Porzingis is ready to take the mantle from Anthony as the Knicks’ best player and elevate the franchise to contender status.
“…Porzingis is the Knicks’ future,” Rosen wrote on FanRag in the same piece in which he was critical of Anthony. “The young man has the attitude, the work ethic and the talent to become a perennial All-Star.”
But an objective assessment of Porzingis concludes he is several years away from reaching that aforementioned level despite being a terrific prospect. Juxtaposed with young studs such as Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns and Giannis Antetokounmpo, Porzingis has a lot of catching up to do and a ways to go before he can carry a team as Anthony has for the better part of his career.
Yes, Anthony is past his prime. But he remains a valuable commodity and the firewall preventing the Knicks from being the Brooklyn Nets. Conversely, Jackson has become the franchise’s paramount obstacle to progress.
