Is there already a Coach Mike D’Antoni countdown in New York?
It’s not exactly a secret that he was against the dismantling of the club’s opening day roster to bring in Carmelo Anthony as the 2nd superstar to play alongside Amar’e Stoudemire for the foreseeable future. It also doesn’t help things that his former roster that was shipped to Denver, now known affectionately as the Knuggets have suprisingly overachieved to a 12-4 mark while the new look Knicks have floundered, playing sub .500 basketball during the same stretch.
This is New York. It’s known as “The City That Never Sleeps” and if you have the unfortunate chance to listen in on some late night sports chatter on the radio, you’ll know that someone has to be a scapegoat for all the losing going on in Gotham City.
Team owner James Dolan just mortgaged the team’s future on a handful of top tier players and as the old saying goes that, “sh** rolls downhill,” more times than not that brown substance tends to wind up on the coach’s doorstep. Just ask Erik Spoelstra in Miami, who seemingly has Hall of Fame coach Pat Riley breathing down his neck everytime the new look Heat go on a losing streak.
Stoudemire and Anthony still haven’t figured out how they fit together in D’Antoni’s uptempo offense while new point guard Chauncey Billups has missed some time due to injuries. A few lone bright spots have been the steady play of rookie sensation Landry Fields (10.1ppg, 6.6 reb), who is having as good a rookie campaign as anyone not named Griffin or Wall, and 2nd year floor general Toney Douglas, who has notched four 20 point games, including 2 double-doubles in the month of March.
Although the roster was gutted in the Melo trade, a team led by Stoudemire, Anthony, Billups, and Fields should be good enough to at least make a 2nd Round Playoff appearance…shouldn’t they?
It looks improbable right now as the Knicks are clinging to their post-season lives as the 76ers have leap-frogged them for the 6th spot in the Eastern Conference standings. With roughly 10 games to go in the regular season, the Knicks hold only a 3 game lead over 8th place Indiana.
While falling out of the Playoff picture altogether seems an impossibility at this point, an impending 1st Round tilt with the Boston Celtics seems like a huge mountain to climb as the struggling Knicks don’t match-up well with the green and white.
Would a 1st Round exit mean an end to the D’Antoni era? If it is, don’t cry for the coach as he would be owed another $6 million and just might be relieved to have this whole Stat and Melo mess behind him.
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen also provides content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
