Will The Knicks Fire Their Coach
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- Category: Sports
D'Antoni On The Hot Seat
Playing or being associated with any professional sport in the city of New York is like working in a meat grinder. The fans in New York have high expectations, sometimes almost ridiculously high expectations, but it doesn't matter because that's what a player, coach or owner gets when they sign a contract to come to New York. One head coach who understands more than anyone how hot it can get in the meat grinder is head coach of the New York Knicks, Mike D'Antoni.
D'Antoni came to the Knicks from Phoenix where he had great success with a run and gun offense led by two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Steve Nash. After a number of winning seasons with the Suns, D'Antoni was hired by the Knicks to help rebuild a historic franchise that had fallen on tough times. Unfortunately, the architect of the successful shoot-first offense in Phoenix struggled to have the same type of success carry over to the greatest city on Earth.
After making a trade for one of the league's best shooters in Carmelo Anthony at the trade deadline last season (a move some basketball analysts said was foolish since it essentially gutted the roster of talent), D'Antoni finally took the Knicks to the playoffs, where they were quickly swept by the Boston Celtics. Making the playoffs was a great step in the right direction, but the Knicks were in position to make the postseason before the arrival of Carmelo Anthony. In fact, the Knicks really did not do anything impressive after the arrival of the mega star.
"They have not lived up to the hype since the arrival of Carmelo Anthony, and compounding the situation is the fact that the Denver Nuggets, who traded their "best player", have actually improved as a team since the departure of Anthony", explained a GPS Tracker Shop editor for the sports section of the fleet tracker company. "Everybody said once the Knicks had some time to work on chemistry that they would be a vastly improved team. Well, they have had the time and the results are still the same, awful".
Knicks Can't Fire Coach...Yet
The game plan is not quite working out the way it was supposed to be. The original script had the Knicks improving to be one of the top tier basketball teams in the eastern conference, only to lose in the second round of the playoffs. Once all the holes were filled and the pieces were in place, the Knicks would convince Phil Jackson, the greatest NBA head coach of all-time and one time player for the Knicks, to exit retirement, bringing the Knicks that elusive championship within two years. Instead, the Knicks sit at a record of 6-10, which used to be a good record in the eastern conference, but not so much anymore with the improvements by the Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers. If the playoffs started today, the Knicks would miss the playoffs. Ouch.
The Knicks are under-achievers in every way possible. They have one of the best offensive players on paper in Anthony, and the defensive anchor of last year's NBA championship Dallas Mavericks in Tyson Chandler. The Knicks have the talent to contend now, but they struggle to beat bad teams. They fail to beat bad teams at Madison Square Garden. Basically, the Knicks suck.
Here are the facts as things stand today.
- The D'Antoni Offense Does Not Work With The Knicks Roster
- It Will Take More Than Carmelo Anthony For The Knicks To Win
- Both Amare Stoudemire & Carmelo Anthony Are Overpaid
- Fans Are Pissed
- The Knicks Are Terrible
- D'Antoni Must Turn This Team Around Now
The reality is that in two years from now D'Antoni will not be the head coach of the Knicks. Will he be fired? Maybe. The only thing that is known for certain is that the Knicks are terrible and things need to change or they will stay the same. Maybe it is the players failing to adjust to the offensive game plan. Maybe the players simply have no desire to play hard for their head coach. Maybe the Knicks simply are not as good as people think they should be.