During that run, this team played with passion. Due to a variety of injuries, they were forced to play solid defensive bench players, and took advantage of a number of weak opponents. Jeremy Lin was credited for sinking a lot of big buckets, but guys like Tyson Chandler, Jared Jeffries, and Iman Shumpert deserve just as much credit for being so stout on defense.
Once again, Melo is being thrown out into trade rumors, and head coach Mike D'Antoni's job is on the line. While they've played some role in the down spin, they aren't alone, because they aren't management.
This Knicks squad has multiple scorers but lacks the type of two-way players that help win championships. In the Summer 2010 free agent bonanza, NY gave a max contract to Amare Stoudemire. Well aware of his fragile knees, they locked him up for $100 million. Now, he is beginning to look broken down, and no one in the league will trade for him because his surgically repaired knees are uninsured under his contract.
That move, much like the acquisition of their second star and head coach, was probably made out of desperation. Knicks fans were starving for success, so they gutted their team for a star, overpayed another, and signed a coach that openly ignores the importance of defense and rebounding. Sometimes it seems they built this squad based on an issue of SLAM magazine.
We can't place all of the blame on a single player on this Knicks squad, it's more fair to look at the group of people that constructed the team when questioning it's title aspirations.
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