Had Carmelo Anthony never gone down with an injury this season, we may have never known the true reason Mike D’Antoni can no longer coach the Knicks. Unless you believe it is a coincidence that the Knicks were the NBA’s hottest team when Carmelo was on the bench, you know that the return of Melo spelled the end for D’Antoni. Anthony is the superstar, and he and D’Antoni were never going to get along. Amar’e Stoudemire even alluded to it when asked about D’Antoni’s resignation on Wednesday.
“I know he tried to implement a certain system,” Stoudemire said according to the NY Daily News. “And everyone wasn’t buying into it, so he may have been a little frustrated so he felt stepping down was the best way for him.
“It’s never easy. Whenever you’re losing ballgames, frustration sets in. The ultimate cure to anything is to win. And at that point in time we weren’t doing that.”
In other words, Melo wasn’t buying into the system. Everyone seemed to be buying into it just fine when Anthony was sitting out with an injury and the Knicks ripped off seven straight wins. Carmelo, of course, insists he had nothing to do with his former head coach’s decision.
“It didn’t have anything to do with that,” Anthony said. “That was Coach’s decision. I really don’t know where his mind-set was at, what he thought, what he’s thinking as far his decision to step down. Anything about me and Mike he’ll tell you we never had any issues. Any disagreements he had with us as a team we talked about and we went from there.”
Given the rumors that D’Antoni wanted to trade Carmelo before the deadline, it would appear the Knicks front office determined their head coach would be easier to replace than their biggest superstar. Anthony can pretend all he wants if he thinks it will help his public image, but there isn’t a single person in New York who would try to argue that he didn’t push D’Antoni out of town.
