Phil Jackson on Carmelo Anthony: 'The ball can't stop'
Knicks president Phil Jackson says that moving the ball and sharing the scoring load are priorities for both him and Carmelo Anthony. And yet what evidence is there that that can work?
Any Phil Jackson interview is typically a goldmine for quotes, and the New York Post interview with the New York Knicks GM is no exception. After talking about how Kobe Bryant had a better training regimen and discipline than Michael Jordan, Jackson was asked about how Carmelo Anthony would be different this season.
Q: How and why will the triangle offense make Carmelo a better player?
A: It’ll give him opportunity to be a passer, a rebounder, and probably easier spots to score from than he’s had before. I think. I hope that’s true for a lot of the players.
Q: Hawks GM Danny Ferry recently made comments about Carmelo in which he reportedly said: “He can shoot the [bleep] out of it, but he screws you up in other ways. So is he really worth $20 million? I would argue if he plays the right way, absolutely.”
A: I think there’s probably 15 players in the NBA that are very similar position. I don’t know if all of ’em are paid $20 million, but the coaches and GMs are talking about it in those type of terms — how much does this guy hurt your team, or hurt the game flow because he’s trying to score. The attempt to score, the need to score, the pressure that he feels he has to score. … Does he take away from the team game? That’s what Danny’s talking about there. And that’s where Carmelo’s gonna move forward this year in that situation — the ball can’t stop. The ball has to continually move. It moves, or goes to the hoop on a shot or a drive or something like that. In our offense, that’s part of the process of getting players to play in that rhythm.
Q: And Jordan had to make that adjustment too, right?
A: Michael had to be able to share the ball, other people had to get shots, only so many shots available out there. And when someone’s taking 27 a game or something? 25 a game, that’s maybe a third of the shots. That can’t happen in basketball.
Q: Is Carmelo on board with this?
A: All we talked about in our negotiation was, “I’d like not to have to feel like I have to carry the load to score every night.” He wants some help.
via Phil Jackson Q&A: ‘The ball can’t stop’ with Carmelo | New York Post.
"The ball can't stop" and "we re-signed Carmelo Anthony to a five-year deal" is an interesting contrast in ideas. Stopping the ball isn't a product of scheme, talent, or situation. There is always a way to fnd another shot, an opportunity to move the ball. It's a conscious decision not to pass, and that's been Melo's mark his entire career.
That's not to say that Anthony is selfish, as the situation is constantly misconstrued as. It's that holding the ball, operating out of the post or in the triple-threat, and hoisting shot after shot... that's Anthony's comfort zone. His comment about not wanting to carry the scoring load to Jackson has nothing to do with him lowering his number of shots. It has to do with someone else scoring. He probably accepts that he will have a lower scoring load as a result, but that's secondary. And it takes two to tango.
Here's another question. Who's going to take over that scoring load? The idea is that it will be shared among the rest of the team, but that inevitably means some will have more than others. Jose Calderon? Tim Hardaway Jr.? Andrea Bargnani? No, seriously, Andrea Bargnani? And in games where the score is close and the defensive intensity is high (not that the Knicks will compete in a lot of those games, but some), Anthony's still going to look to score. Melo loves to cook, and he's good at it.
It just seems like a lot of the ideas about what the Knicks need to do and what they plan to do are easy to say and suggest, and not as easy to execute, with this team built around this particular star. For the record, Anthony took 25 shots or more in only 17 of his 77 games last season.
