Carmelo Anthony Says He’s Not a Coach-Killer


Nearly everyone blames Carmelo Anthony for the Mike D’Antoni fiasco in New York, but the Knicks’ star forward says that it’s not his fault that D’Antoni walked away from the job. Per Newsday: “That bothers me because I never want that label on me,’ Anthony said. ‘I did everything in my power to try and communicate with coach Mike, talk with coach Mike, have a great relationship with coach Mike. Even right now, I feel we have a great relationship.’ […] ‘I think it’s false,’ he said. ‘Me and Mike talked constantly about trying to find out different ways in what I can do and what we can do as a team. It wasn’t working. We lost games, and when you lose games, people say it’s not working, and of course the blame is on me. As far as the system working for me or not working for me, it worked in the Olympics when we won the gold medal. I’ll take that. If I’m the one that messed coach Mike’s system up, if you all want to blame me, I’ll take it, along with everything else.’ […] ‘He came to me and said there were some things that I was going to have to sacrifice, and he wanted me to sacrifice,’ Anthony said. ‘When I came back off of injuries, the team was going in a different direction — running that system, running that offense. We had won games. And for me to come back and try to fit in and try to figure it out and not try to do too much, it was for me to figure that part out.’ He said he had no issues about sacrificing his game. ‘I’m not a do-what-I-do type of guy,’ he said. ‘Me and Coach never had that problem where I came out and said I’m going to do what I do and he’s going to do what he’s doing. I always went to him and asked him what can I do to help the situation and vice versa.'”