I'm a huge Knicks fan. Always have been, always will be. I practically bleed blue & orange. I've realized in the last year that one of the beauties of Twitter is the ability to connect with a group of people -- some of who'm you may not know personally. My primary use for Twitter has been to follow Beat writers for the Mets, Giants and Knicks, as well as bloggers and reporters. A lot of these bloggers are actually pretty smart and from time to time make the reporters and analysts look like morons. They also tweet back and forth with some writers like Alan Hahn. However, there's always a jackass among them.
I encountered one of these jackasses last night. I'll refer to him as "sports guy" for now -- and no, it's not Bill Simmons. Anyhow, this sports guy seems to be a big supporter of Mike D'Antoni, which I have no problem with. Hey, you like the guy's coaching style; cool. To each his own. What I don't like, is sports guy trying to act like he knows it all, and anyone who disagrees with him is a moron. At some point, the love of Mike D'Antoni needs to stop and you need to get on with life and actually blog about what the Knicks are doing on court. Sports Guy was just roaming Twitter yesterday continuing to blame Carmelo Anthony for D'Antoni's departure, and acting like Mike is some kind of saint. I understand that the team struggled when Melo arrived and have been a .500 team since then -- but newslash, the Knicks team in 2010-2011 before Carmelo Anthony was a .500 team, and nothing more. At times it seems like people have completely forgotten that the Knicks were an average team without Carmelo, and were barely in the playoff race. It's not like they were a top 5 team in the East before the trade, so lets just drop that act.
Carmelo Anthony is a phenomenal scorer, and can be a good defender when he's motivated to do so. The problem with Melo this season has been two things: 1) He has battled through countless injuries. 2) Mike D'Antoni refused to let Carmelo play his game.
You bring in a player who is great at playing in isolation, can beat most defenders to get to the basket, is extremely athletic, and is excellent in the low post. The thing most people forget, is Mike D'Antoni refused to let Carmelo play in the Post or isolate. The hate for Carmelo by Sports Guy is absolutely unbelievable. I seriously wonder if he knew anything about how Carmelo Anthony when he played in Denver, or did he just look at his PPG, Rebounds & FG% and squeal around like a fat kid in a candy shop? This would be like trading for a PG who is a phenomenal passer and telling him to be the two guard and take mostly 3pt shots. That is not coaching. That is being stubborn. Mike D'Antoni was stubborn in Phoenix, and he was stubborn until his final hour in New York. Sure, he had a winning team for a while in phoenix, but that's because he had a great PG who fit perfeclty into his system. Still, when he got to the playoffs and opposing coaches had day after day to see how his team played, they made adjustments, and D'Antoni's powerhouse Suns teams never won a title.
Great coaches take the personnel they have, and make adjustments. They figure out how to play to the strengths of who they have, and that is the exact opposite of what D'Antoni did.
And now, back to Sports Guy. So when people who follow him (who I presume have unfollowed him by now) responded and refuted his statements, he simply backpeddaled like a tennis player about to be spiked, and called every Knicks fan "delusional". Hey, great way to have followers, ey buddy? If that's not one of the most asinine things to say, I don't know what is.
Lastly, I finally made my mark on the discussion. In the middle of his MD gargling he mentioned D'Antoni's NYK team was a top defense this year before Woodson took over. In my eyes, I saw that statement as pro-Mike, as was the rest of his argument. Unfortunately, he asks who was to credit? Mike or Woodson? So obviously I responded with a question of my own -- "Has Mike D'Antoni ever been considered a defensive coach?" Simple question that basically answers itself and answers his original question. Rather than admitting Mike D'Antoni doesn't give two shits about coaching defense, he has the audacity to respond to me with the following quote:
Let me guess..your one of those people that think defense wins rings huh?Well, I could have easily trounced him by simply linking him to this:
Instead I responded and immediately blocked him, and unfollowed him. My response was simply pointing out the flaw in his "Mike D'Antoni's defense rules, woot woot" BS argument. Who does he think he is, trying to BS a BSer like myself?
So I assume in the end, Sports Guy thinks no defense and all offense wins championships, which is interesting since that same system never worked for Mike D'Antoni. Look, instead of actually following a Knicks team that is winning, he's creaming his pants over Mike D'Antoni being quitting weeks ago. Oh, and that's another thing. Sports Guy continues to claim D'Antoni was fired. Uh, newsflash bro, D'Antoni quit. Melo didn't force him out. Melo didn't get him fired. Mike went to management and asked them to trade Carmelo to NJ (who are trying to move to Brooklyn and take over NY, by the way) and they basically told him to get lost. Not only would that trade have put an end to Melo as a Knick, but it would have officially destroyed Linsanity, which is the lone anti-Melo argument, since the trade would have sent PG Deron Williams to NY and push Lin back to the bench.
Right now,
