The easy answer is to trade Carmelo Anthony. Let's just put that out there, right off the bat. The question: How do the Knicks get from here to a championship?
There are a slew of "what's next for the Knicks" articles floating around today, now that New York has been eliminated from the playoffs. New York was competitive against Miami after its opening-game blowout, and Anthony was the primary reason for that. Players dropped around him like flies, but the less talent Mike Woodson had to put out on the court, the better Anthony played. Most of these obit pieces, as they are called in the industry, will be more focused on how to build around Anthony, not without him.
A couple of weeks ago, I made the unpopular case that Anthony is not a championship player, and I believe that. It's not that I dislike Anthony. It's not that I've never watched a basketball game. Anthony seems like a jovial enough guy. He has been great on "Nurse Jackie" and we happen to share the same all-time favorite player -- Bernard King, from whom he could learn a few lessons in intensity. What I don't like is Anthony's style of play, which I don't believe is conducive to winning a championship. He sucks up too many possessions, doesn't play both ends of the floor and doesn't do enough to make his teammates better. These are not the attributes of a championship player.
