New York Knicks Rumors: Is All Hope Officially Lost?

It's still early in the NBA season, but after recent displays of ineptitude, is all hope of contention officially lost for Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks?

The answer to this question can be obtained by asking yet another question: Do you recall how the Miami Heat performed at the beginning of last season? 

Mike D'Antoni needs to be fired. Amar'e Stoudemire must be traded. Tyson Chandler is a bust. These are only a few of the rumblings that can be heard throughout the basketball world right now. The Knicks are off to a poor start, there is no doubt about that, but to cast judgment on this team less than halfway through the season is unwarranted.

Actually, strike that, it's absurd.

Each day, unjustified conclusions are being reached on a team that hasn't played together enough to surmise anything. D'Antoni's head is already being called for, Stoudemire has found his way into the Dwight Howard rumor mill and many have the entire Knicks team written off.

Could we slow our roll for a moment, please?

First off, New York isn't landing Howard. If that was the team's master plan, Chandler would be playing for the Golden State Warriors. It's not out of the question for the Knicks to shake up the roster, but an acquisition of that magnitude is less than unlikely.

Additionally, Stoudemire is not turning into a shell of his former self. He is struggling on offense because the team as a whole has no flow, and he's forced to create for himself as a result. Has his defense been worse than usual? Sure, but with Chandler in the low post, his diminished aggression is probably by design.

Next, it's time the relentless D'Antoni speculation cease and desist. He isn't going anywhere, at least not right now.

And for all the Steve Nash hopefuls out there, keep in mind that the Canadian-born superstar is a huge advocate of his. Keeping D'Antoni around only increases the likelihood that Nash is broadway bound.

The incessant criticism surrounding this team is obnoxiously premature. If you want to chastise their performance against the league's lower-level teams, then by all means go ahead. If you want to draw unfounded conclusions regarding this team's future, then you're toeing the line of irrationality.

Have we all forgotten about the Heat of last season? For the first 20 games of the campaign, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were fighting to keep their team's head above water, yet they wound up making the NBA Finals.

Is New York's star-laden roster as studded as Miami's? No, but calling the Heat a bust was premature then, and it's the same situation, different faces, with regard to the Knicks now.

The fact that this team is new to one another cannot be stressed enough. That's the problem when taking what national analysts say at face value sometimes. They don't see the entire picture.

New York's greatest fault is not their inability to keep pace with the league's elite, but rather it's the lack of a true point guard. It has Anthony attempting to shoulder the type of burden no one is asking him to, Toney Douglas trying to be a player he's not and Stoudemire out of sync on both sides of the ball.

As if that's not enough, analysts are also up in arms because Iman Shumpert is playing like a rookie and there are even those who have deemed Chandler—and his near double-double a night—a bust.

Here is some privileged information to feast on: The reason Shumpert is struggling at times and playing like a rookie, is because he is a rookie. As far as Chandler's performance, what else was to be expected of him, especially considering he is still acclimating himself to a new environment?  

The Knicks are not a team incapable of performing, rather they are a faction still searching for an identity.

Losses to teams like the Charlotte Bobcats and Phoenix Suns are always tough to stomach, but then again, poor displays of cohesion still exist in any franchise. Hell, the Oklahoma City Thunder are fresh off a loss to the worst team in the league.

Currently, hard-to-swallow losses have become more prevalent around Madison Square Garden, but that's just temporary. The Heat hit their stride and established an identity, and New York will eventually do the same.

So, is all hope lost for the reeling Knicks?

No, all hope is not lost, but the fact that we must impugn such a notion this early in the game suggests that sensible logic is.

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