New York Knicks: 6 Biggest Obstacles Carmelo Anthony Will Face This Season

Carmelo Anthony is the face of the New York Knicks, and now that he heads into his first full season—complete with a full training camp—with the team, he'll be facing a fair amount of obstacles on his path to winning an NBA title.

As the leader of a team that has been assembled to challenge the league's best next season, Anthony has a lot of weight on his shoulders, and his play could be the difference between a low-seeded playoff team and a genuine title contender.

Melo has his supporting cast now, and the 2012-13 season awaits, with hopes and expectations at their highest now that the team is healthy and has time to gel in training camp.

Here are the six biggest obstacles Anthony will need to overcome to take the Knicks and himself to the next level.

The Miami Heat

As the reigning Eastern Conference and NBA Champions—as well as the team that ended the Knicks' hopes last season—there is little dispute as to which team will cause Carmelo Anthony the most trouble next season.

Though they don't play in the same division—and resultantly won't play too many head-to-head matchups in the regular season—Anthony and the Knicks will eventually have to beat the Heat at some point if they are ever to make it to the NBA Finals.

Last year, Melo played his heart out in the playoffs against the Heat, but still his side was nowhere near a series victory against LeBron James and company.

Somehow, Anthony needs to find a way to get past this team with his newly-revamped supporting cast, or it's hard to picture them going too far in the Eastern Conference in the foreseeable future.

The Atlantic Division

Though the Miami Heat may not be in his division, Carmelo Anthony still has a number of tough teams to face in the Atlantic, which may just be the strongest division in the league after the 2012 offseason.

Every single team has improved over the summer, and each could have the quality to make the playoffs next season.

Realistically, the Knicks could finish anywhere between first and fourth in their division, which will obviously have a huge bearing on their standings in the Eastern Conference and whether or not they will finish in the top four.

Playing against these teams so often next season will not be an easy task for the Knicks, and it will be primarily on Anthony for New York to get the best of the other teams in the Atlantic.

With matchups against great defenders like Gerald Wallace and Paul Pierce, Anthony specifically will be challenged to the limit within the division next season.

Amar'e Stoudemire

Amar'e Stoudemire may be the man who recruited Carmelo Anthony and the man that Melo so dearly wanted to play with, but their chemistry struggles early on have been well-documented the last one-and-a-half seasons.

As two of the game's elite scorers, the partnership of STAT and Melo has the potential to be a lethal force in the NBA, but for now, it will take a lot of work in training camp to get to that level.

Melo and Stoudemire are not a perfect fit, and both will have to make adjustments to their games in order for this to work.

Being the leader of the team and the focal point of the offense, it is Anthony who will have to expand his passing and off-the-ball play to get his partner more involved with the offense.

If they work it out, having Stoudemire alongside him could end up as a great advantage for Melo, but for the time being—based on what we've seen so far—building chemistry with STAT is an obstacle Anthony has yet to pass.

Playing with New Point Guards

Last season, Carmelo Anthony struggled to play with some new faces at the point guard position, and it showed.

After playing with Chauncey Billups for three seasons in Denver and New York, Melo had to play with a new starter for the first time since 2008, which caused some real problems.

With Toney Douglas and even Jeremy Lin, Anthony was visibly never on the same page, and that was a huge contributor to the Knicks' stagnant offense.

In 2012-13, the Knicks will face major changes at the point guard position once again, and as the focal point of the offense, this will leave more work for Anthony to work things out with his new partners.

Granted, the three point guards New York brought in are much more pass-oriented than those Melo played with last season, but it's never as easy as just walking onto the court and getting chemistry going right away.

Now that the Knicks actually have point guards capable of running the offense, the changes at the 1-spot should help in the long run, but there will still be an adjustment period and a lot of work required to get the offense together.

Expectations and Pressure

Whichever way you spin it, the Knicks have not met expectations since acquiring Carmelo Anthony from the Nuggets in February 2011.

Though injuries and coaching changes have played a part, the Knicks didn't go all out to bring in Melo just to end up as a seventh seed in the Eastern Conference.

With injuries, the lockout and various other factors hurting them last season, Melo and the Knicks had excuses for their failures, but they won't have any if they fail to improve in 2012-13.

Anthony now has himself a head coach he can trust, three pass-first point guards and some great defensive players around him and it's hard to picture a roster built around him any more strongly than this.

Inclusive of his Denver days, this is the best roster Melo has been a part of to date, so by the same token, his results should also be the best he's had .

Now that the team is built, the onus is on Melo to lead his supporting cast to the promised land, and though he's not one to be easily rattled, he's never faced so much pressure in his career.

Himself

The main criticism of Melo's game, really since he was drafted in 2003, has been that outside of scoring, the forward doesn't contribute to his team as much as he should in other areas.

Calling Melo selfish is a bit of a stretch, but he definitely needs to improve his ball-distribution and play a role in a more flowing offense, to go along with his great isolation play.

Defense has also been an issue over the course of his career, but under Mike Woodson, Melo looked much improved last season on that end of the floor.

Of course, there's still a lot of work to be done, and Anthony is nowhere near an All-NBA Defensive selection any time soon, but it's nice to see that he's putting in the effort.

Melo has the talent to make these changes to his game and to come out a better player, but if he doesn't make these slight tweaks, there's no way he'll ever reach the level of a LeBron James or a Kobe Bryant.

At this point, Anthony is the only person stopping Anthony from being an elite-level NBA superstar, and until he reaches that level, he's also stopping the Knicks from going all the way.

Anthony has already shown us what he can do with players he trusts at the London Olympics, and following a full training camp, we should hope to see a similar player in New York in 2012-13.