Carmelo is not 100% and Derek Fisher reportedly is saying that Carmelo may have played his last ball for the season.
Via ESPN,
“From the conversations I’ve been a part of, I think everybody is smart enough to realize, calendar wise, timing wise, that there may come a point that that’s the decision that needs to be made,” Fisher said Friday. “But [we realize] that we can’t force Carmelo to that point just yet.”
Fisher wasn’t done though as he continued.
“We can’t unilaterally just say, ‘Hey, you know, you can’t play for the rest of the season because of A, B and C,'” Fisher said. “I think our medical staff, our training staff, continue to have conversations with him about where he is. He’s conversing with us about how he’s feeling, what the symptoms are. And so as each day kind of unfolds, decisions are being made. It’s not something that we’re just kind of stepping back and saying, ‘Carmelo, you kind of tell us when you don’t feel like playing anymore.'”
Putting it on Carmelo so they don’t get the blame? I don’t know. I rather they just step forward and take the heat off him. The Knicks are in the midst of a throwaway season and have an actual first round pick in next years draft so it would benefit them to be as bad as possible this year. That means putting the most garbage team on the court as possible so the Knicks may decide to keep Anthony out the rest of the year in order to secure a good pick and then use the money they’ll have for more pieces next summer. Makes sense, although I am sure Knick fans are tired of living in a perpetual “Wait til next year” cycle for over a dozen years.