Amar’e Stoudemire on Mike D’Antoni: ‘Everyone Wasn’t Buying Into His System’


When asked about Mike D’Antoni’s surprising decision to resign, Amar’e Stoudemire said that he couldn’t get through to the team (or, more to the point, couldn’t get Carmelo Anthony to buy into his offensive system.) All hail the Mike Woodson Era! Per the NY Daily News: “Amar’e Stoudemire on Mike D’Antoni resigned because ‘everyone wasn’t buying into his system’ and that it made the Knicks former head coach ‘look bad.’ The implication, of course, is that D’Antoni resigned on Wednesday because he could no longer work with Carmelo Anthony, who had struggled under D’Antoni since last year’s celebrated trade with the Denver Nuggets. Tyson Chandler, however, defended Anthony, saying that his All-Star teammate had become an easy scapegoat with the Knicks getting off to an 18-24 start. After beating Portland to snap a six-game losing streak Wednesday night, Anthony refused to accept responsibility for D’Antoni abruptly stepping down. ‘It didn’t have anything to do with that,’ Anthony said. ‘That was Coach’s decision. I really don’t know where his mind-set was at, what he thought, what he’s thinking as far his decision to step down. Anything about me and Mike he’ll tell you we never had any issues. Any disagreements he had with us as a team we talked about and we went from there.’ […] Stoudemire, who was an All-Star under D’Antoni in both Phoenix and New York, became less and less of a factor after Anthony was acquired. The Knicks were a dynamic offensive team in the pre-Melo days, but in the 74 games they played since the Anthony trade and with D’Antoni as the coach the Knicks went 32-42. Last week, Anthony admitted that he was struggling to adjust to an offense in which Jeremy Lin, and not he, was the primary ball-handler. ‘I know he tried to implement a certain system,’ Stoudemire said. ‘And everyone wasn’t buying into it, so he may have been a little frustrated so he felt stepping down was the best way for him.’”