Remember the inception of Jeremy Lin’s “Linsanity” movement during the lockout-truncated 2011-12 season? Of course you do. It’s been a big part of his career arc, and it’s still talked about today.
Including Wednesday.
Houston Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni, who was head coach of the New York Knicks for the birth of Linsanity, opened up about that time to The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Nets Daily). And let’s just say Lin’s former teammates, Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, don’t come out of this conversation looking squeaky clean:
It was there, it’s real. The problem that we had was that for Jeremy to be really good, which he was, he had to play a certain way. It was hard for him to adapt.
“Amare, Melo, whatever, had to play a certain way too to be really, really good. So there was that inherent conflict of what’s better for the team, what isn’t, Can they co-exist? Can they not? And again, they could have co-existed if Melo went to the 4, which he really didn’t want to and Amare came to the back up 5, like with Tyson, which he really didn’t want though.
None of this was really a secret, but it is nevertheless jarring to see that D’Antoni has confirmed it. The reluctance from Anthony and Stoudemire to make way for a point guard who, in theory, could help them both is so ridiculous.
If Lin’s rise took place today, there wouldn’t be an issue. Stoudemire is no longer considered a star, and Anthony has adapted a more team-friendly approach. He is more accustomed to working off the ball and has improved his leadership chops over the last two years. He also seems willing to share the spotlight (see: mentorship of Kristaps Porzingis).
Which isn’t to say Anthony has absolved himself of the way he purportedly viewed Lin’s rise in New York. The Knicks, it seems, may have missed a golden opportunity then, to pair him, as a power forward, with a drive-heavy point guard—a botched chance from which they have yet to fully recover.
