Mike D’Antoni: Knicks are Title Contenders, ‘Obviously’

Head coach believes that he now has a good enough roster in New York to seriously challenge for an NBA championship (d’uh!) ESPN reports: “New York Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni thinks his team can ‘obviously’ contend for an NBA title this season. D’Antoni believes that the front line of Amare Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler turns the Knicks into a championship contender. ‘If you have a center from the defending champions on your team that’s 28 years old and is playing the best basketball he’s ever played and you’ve got two superstars in [Carmelo Anthony] and [Amare Stoudemire], obviously you’ve got to compete for a championship,’ the coach said. With Anthony and Stoudemire in tow, the Knicks made the playoffs for the first time in six seasons last year. They were swept by the Boston Celtics. The franchise has not won a playoff game since 2001, and they haven’t won an NBA title since 1973. D’Antoni stopped short of guaranteeing this year’s team will end the title drought. But the coach said he is confident that, with the addition of Chandler, the Knicks should at the very least be “one of the top teams in the league. I can’t sit here and say, ‘Oh, these guys are great’ and [then say] ‘No, we can’t compete,’ D’Antoni told Kay. ‘That’s not fair to anybody. I think our fans should expect us to compete. … It does take luck, it takes timing, it takes a lot of things. But there’s no reason why we’re not one of the top teams in the league.’”