Carmelo Anthony Trade Would Only Be First Step to Total NY Knicks Rebuild
We can all agree that trading Carmelo Anthony would be the right move for the New York Knicks. It'd be hard to find many fans and analysts who can offer a substantial counter to that claim.
Anyone who's watched the Knicks play over the past two months or so knows they stink. They've dropped 14 of their last 18 games and now sit at an embarrassing 20-27. They have the league's sixth-worst defense, a mediocre offense and are being outscored by three points per 100 possessions, the NBA's eighth-worst mark.
If not for a rail-thin Eastern Conference, where one winning streak can vaunt a D-League-level roster like the Philadelphia 76ers into playoff contention, New York's season would be over. Even if the Knicks were to make up the three-game deficit between them and the eighth-place Chicago Bulls, they'd be setting themselves up for a four-game playoff sweep.
Team president Phil Jackson seems to finally recognize this, and multiple reports have come out this week that Jackson has offered Anthony to the Los Angeles Clippers, Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers.
The rebuild, it seems, is officially underway. But it's going to take more than cutting ties with Anthony (who does have a no-trade clause, which could throw a wrench into the team's plans) to get the Knicks headed in the right direction.
The good news: New York already has a young star in Kristaps Porzingis, a 21-year-old wunderkind and the type of stud teams spend years trying to find.
His presence is probably one of the reasons Jackson traded for Derrick Rose and signed Joakim Noah to a ludicrous four-year deal in the offseason.
Fine, Jackson likely wanted to make the playoffs to help boost his own cracking legacy. But you'd like to think there was more depth behind his decision to recklessly chase a postseason berth.
"Winning begets winning," NBA TV and TNT analyst Kevin McHale, a Hall of Fame player and former NBA executive and head coach, told Bleacher Report in a phone interview this week. "I think sometimes you want your young guys to make the playoffs and get a taste of that."
Of course, that hasn't worked out. So now it's on to Plan B, which should have been Plan A—but better late than never, right?
This time, though, Jackson needs to fully commit to the reset. Chasing multiple targets is what got the Knicks into their current mess. They wanted to win games today and build for tomorrow. In theory, it was a nice plan. But unless you have a front office and coaching staff full of wizards, like the San Antonio Spurs, it rarely works.
That's why trading Anthony is an important first step. It's also worth noting that there are people within the organization who believe removing him from the equation is the answer to fixing the team's ghastly defense. Anthony is putting up strong offensive numbers (22.7 points on 43.8 percent shooting), but the loss of his shadow would boost ball movement on offense. Porzingis would be freed of the shackles of a secondary role. He'd start learning what it takes to be a go-to scorer every night.
Think of it as addition by subtraction, which is why the Knicks should strongly consider any offer they receive, even if it's a bunch of spare parts from the Clippers, like the move the Daily News' Frank Isola reported the two teams recently discussed.
But the dealing shouldn't stop there.
They're stuck with Noah, but perhaps another team, one in desperate need of a point guard, would be interested in either Rose (who, between his lifeless defense and strange desertion of the team, has probably played himself out of favor with the team) or Brandon Jennings, both of whom will be free agents this summer.
Kyle O'Quinn, who is on the books for a little over $8 million over the next two years, could be a serviceable center on a playoff team. (He's averaging 14.6 points, 13.3 rebounds and 2.9 blocks per 36 minutes, according to Basketball-Reference.com.) The Knicks should be able to get something in return for him.
Give the bulk of the season's remaining minutes to guys like Willy Hernangomez, Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Justin Holiday. Collect as many assets as possible, even if they're just second-round picks (maybe the international scouts can unearth another gem). If the young players magically mesh and win a few games and thrust the Knicks back into playoff contention, great. If not, and they struggle to compete, then New York gets a better draft pick in a class that analysts consider to be loaded.
Funny as it sounds, acquiring talent is almost the easy part—or at least the part Jackson has proved himself somewhat adept at. What he's failed to do is purge Madison Square Garden of its losing culture. There's always some sort of controversy swirling around the team, some sort of flame engulfing the franchise—and contrary to what the organization would like you to think, it's not the media's fault.
No reporter tricked the Knicks team president into taking shots at LeBron James and his powerful management team; no tabloid forced Rose to run away from the team and leave a plethora of unanswered questions in his wake.
Organizational dysfunction runs from the top down. That also means a step back in the standings can be leveraged into an opportunity for the Knicks to change their ways.
"With this team it's about establishing our culture, a foundation, building winning habits, and we're starting to do that," Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said Monday night in Brooklyn when asked about the difficulties of coaching a young and struggling team. The two-time champion, whose Heat are going through their own rebuilding phase, said: "Every single day we work at it. That doesn't guarantee everything, but all season long we've had a commitment to work to get better, and our younger players are learning what winning plays actually mean."
Is Jeff Hornacek the right head coach for this job in New York? That's also a question Jackson needs to answer. The only way to do so is by allowing Hornacek to coach a roster where things run through Porzingis and not Anthony or Rose.
That's what it will come down to: how great Porzingis can be and how adept Jackson can be building around him.
Trading Anthony is a good first step. But if it's the only one Jackson has in mind, then the Knicks are in trouble.
All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats from NBA.com unless otherwise noted and are accurate as of Thursday, Jan. 26.
Yaron Weitzman covers the Knicks, and other things, for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman and listen to his Knicks-themed podcast here.
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