Carmelo Anthony is finding out that, strangely, brand reinvention may be harder than brand invention in the first place.
The critics seem to have finally caught up with ‘Melo this season. Why else would Knicks team coming off a 54-win season be getting no respect?
Because the Anthony we know — albeit a career 25 ppg scorer and coming off of a scoring title — can’t fool anyone anymore.
Sure, you can say he’s uuber talented and be absolutely right.
But you could also say he’s one dimensional, supremely flawed, a ball-stopper and becoming a second-tier star and also be correct. Most of all, Anthony has never been considered a leader. Something that is essential to being the guy to carry a team to an NBA championship.
But this season, now more than ever, Anthony appears to be motivated to persuade us otherwise. Despite the Knicks rocky, uninspiring 1-3 start this season, Carmelo has been the Knicks biggest advocate, saying he wants to recruit other stars to New York — Kevin Love on line 1 — and retire a Knick.
Today news broke that after the Knicks fell 102-97 at home to the Charlotte Bobcats, a game in which they lost Tyson Chandler for 4-6 weeks, Anthony held a players only meeting. This would be a big step in the right direction:
Anthony said he and others spoke and one of his messages was the Knicks must “want it more’’ and stop playing as if they don’t believe in themselves. The reeling Knicks are off to a 1-3 start, and suffered a devastating loss when Chandler was sidelined for 4-6 weeks with a broken leg. Their mental state seems very fragile, too.
“We shut the door after the game, talked it out a little bit,’’ a downbeat Anthony said Friday at the morning shootaround at Time Warner Cable Arena ahead of a road rematch with the Bobcats. “Try to figure out what was happening and going on. We just weren’t competing the way we know how to compete. We weren’t playing the way we know how to play. Hopefully the conversation we had after the game made everyone else realize, though it is early, there are things we need to fix and fix now.’’
“We got to want it,’’ added Anthony, who is shooting just 37.1 percent. “We got to want to do it. We got to believe in ourselves right now. We’re playing like we don’t believe in ourselves.’’
On the surface, it appears that Anthony wants it. The key here is the question: how deep does it go?
In 20 games will Anthony still be acting as if he wants it? What if the Knicks continue to sputter?
Can he convince his most talented running mate, J.R. Smith, to want it as much as he does?
How far will Anthony go to get it?
These are questions that will have to be answered by Carmelo as the season continues. He can say all the right things now. That’s the easy part. It’s only been one week. That’s not to say it’s not nice to see. For all of the knocks on Anthony he is one of the leagues most talented players. He has brought Knicks basketball back to life, something that is more important for the NBA than most realize. And, at the end of the day, he’s not a bad guy.
“We got to get over it,” Anthony said. “It’s a sad situation, unfortunate situation. But we got to keep on going.’’
Onto more around the NBA