The New York Knicks suffered another tough loss over the weekend and the news and rumors are ramping up.
Check out the latest buzz below.
Should Anthony End Season?
Carmelo Anthony is hurting and may need surgery.
If the Knicks were in playoff contention, postponing the operation until the offseason might make sense.
But an increasing number of people are saying the Knicks should end Anthony’s season now, and be content to get a high lottery pick.
That move could be described as tanking.
“With Anthony bothered by a sore left knee (and bruised ego), should the Knicks just send him to the Hospital for Special Surgery already to have it fixed -- thus avoiding the ignominy of wasting one of the good seasons he has left, at age 30 in the first year of a five-year, $124 million contract?” CBS reporter Ken Berger wondered.
“I say, why not? What’s one more lost season and a few less $12 beers if it ensures that the Knicks finally will be able to exercise the rights that come with a premium first-round pick? It’s not like Anthony is taking them anywhere but the lottery anyway.”
Anthony doesn’t want to sit out, but the Knicks could use the highest pick possible in this draft since they don’t have one in 2016.
And it’s become impossible to imagine the team making the playoffs even in the Eastern Conference, sapping any motivation there might be to keep Anthony logging big minutes.
Shumpert Out for Weeks
Iman Shumpert, one of the Knicks most consistent players, will be out for at least three weeks due to a dislocated left shoulder.
He'll be re-evaluated around January 3, 2015.
“We don’t want to jeopardize the remaining part of his season, so we'll have to see,” Knicks coach Derek Fisher told ESPN.
Meanwhile, J.R. Smith didn’t play on Sunday.
Smith is day to day with a small partial tear of the plantar fascia in his left foot.
“The timetable for return following plantar fascia injuries varies widely depending on the degree of the tear,” noted the broadcaster.
Fisher said Smith would start, but the former Sixth Man of the Year was ruled out after warming up.
Without Shumpert and Smith, the Knicks only have one shooting guard--Tim Hardaway Jr.--on the roster. He started against the Raptors and played 35 minutes.
The Knicks filled in the position with backup point guards Shane Larkin and Pablo Prigioni, pairing them at times with starting point guard Jose Calderon.
Bargnani to Blame
Andrea Bargnani, Toronto’s former No. 1 overall pick who was dealt to the Knicks in the summer of 2013, still hasn’t played this season because of hamstring and calf injuries.
Bargnani was slated to return weeks ago but for yet-unexplained reasons did not.
Marc Berman of the New York Post says Barnani is partly to blame for the team’s current collapse.
“Bargnani watched the Knicks collapse famously in overtime from the bench, in a black suit. That’s appropriate since he’s been the black cloud over the franchise since he got here,” he said.
“Bargnani is needed even more and he couldn’t be more invisible. He still could be a shotmaker. Counting last season, Bargnani has missed 66 straight regular-season games with either a torn elbow ligament, hamstring strain or calf strain. He’s making $12 million this season, so figure the black suit he wore on the bench Sunday night is top of the line.”
Fisher said before the game he couldn’t specify Bargnani’s current condition.
“Until he practices, I can’t say what I expect,'‘ Fisher said before the game. ”When he’s at practices and he’s out there, that’s when it will be. It isn’t a situation where we’re counting the days. He is progressing but we saw what happened last time. I’m not ruling it in or out. When it happens, that’s when it will happen.’’
Apparently new team president Phil Jackson thought Bargnani would be a good fit in the triangle, and has been flustered at the center not playing at all.
The only hope now may be trading Bargnani away, because his contract is up after this year, but it’s unclear how much of value the team could get in return.
Players Looking Ahead
Fisher, meanwhile, says that a host of players are focused more on the future then the present.
Along with Bargnani, Shumpert, and Larkin, Quincy Acy, Cole Aldrich, Travis Wear, Jason Smith, and Amare Stoudemire are in the last year of their respective contracts.
Smith can opt out of his deal after this season.
“That’s a reality of this game. You have a number of guys that are thinking about how they’re going to provide for their families and where their career is going and whether they’re going to be here or on another team and all the ramifications of those decisions,” Fisher told the New York Daily News.
“So that’s not easy stuff to process. And then on top of that they’re being asked to sacrifice more and do less in order to win so it’s not a great combination for cohesion and team chemistry but I do think there are enough guys in the locker room that want to do it the right way and so that’s why we’ve had a chance a lot of nights to win. But I don’t think anybody’s giving up on what we’re trying to do at this point.”
With Jackson at the helm, the Knicks are going to be looking for big free agents in the offseason, and will likely re-sign few of their players with expiring contracts.
However, some of the role players, including the high-energy Acy and even Stoudemire, could get signed by the team.
Knicks Fall to Raptors in Overtime
Too many fouls. Way too many turnovers — nine alone from their star point guard.
So what if Kyle Lowry and the Toronto Raptors weren’t perfect? Come overtime, they went from flawed to nearly flawless.
“We had so many mistakes on both sides, even defensively,” coach Dwane Casey said. “But it was one of those games, if you’re serious about winning, you find a way to get it done and our guys did it.”
Lowry had 21 points and 11 assists, controlling the overtime period and leading the Raptors to a 95-90 victory over the New York Knicks on Sunday night.
Lowry had nine turnovers and missed a jumper that would’ve won it to end regulation, but then had two baskets and an assist in overtime, accounting for more points than the Knicks managed as a team.
Terrence Ross added a season-high 22 points for the Raptors, who maintained the best record in the Eastern Conference at 18-6.
“It took overtime but I thought everyone stepped it up tonight,” Lowry said.
Carmelo Anthony had 34 points and nine rebounds for the Knicks, who played without injured guards Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith.
Anthony missed all three shots in overtime, when the Knicks went 1 of 8.
“They applied a little bit more pressure than they had throughout the course of the game and kind of got us playing a little bit faster than we wanted to play,” Anthony said.
Tim Hardaway Jr. got the start and scored 18 points, but missed eight of his final 10 shots and finished 4 of 15. The Knicks, who ended a 10-game losing streak with a victory at Boston on Friday, fell to 5-21.
Ross gave the Raptors an 86-84 lead on a short jumper with 2:39 remaining in regulation and the teams then went scoreless across the next 2 minutes before the Knicks finally tied it on Anthony’s drive with 28 seconds to go.
Lowry missed a short jumper before the buzzer but Toronto then held the Knicks without a basket in overtime until Hardaway’s meaningless layup with 5.2 seconds left.
Patrick Patterson’s 3-pointer opened the scoring in OT and put Toronto ahead for good. Lowry later made a pair of jumpers before feeding Amir Johnson for a basket that made it 95-88 with 1:05 left.
Shumpert is expected to miss at least three weeks with a dislocated left shoulder.
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TIP-INS
Raptors: Toronto improved to 10-0 when holding teams below 100 points. ... Jonas Valanciunas had eight points and 13 rebounds, ending his streak of double-doubles at three games, which tied a career high. The last Toronto player with four in a row was Chris Bosh late in the 2009-10 season.
Knicks: Smith said that the training staff had given him a whole new sole for his sneaker to make his heel more comfortable. ... With Jose Calderon and Quincy Acy, the Knicks’ starting lineup had two former Raptors.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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