Phil Jackson Clearly Wants Carmelo Anthony out of New York

By Djack

For a guy that doesn't have to speak to the media often, Phil Jackson certainly does a good job of making headlines every time he does. He most recently made headlines for comments he made about the way Melo plays. Phil said "Carmelo a lot of times wants to hold the ball longer than two seconds. We have a rule, if you hold a pass two seconds, you benefit the defense. So he has a little bit of a tendency to hold it for three, four, five seconds, and then everybody comes to a stop." Publicly bashing his best player, essentially saying he stops the offense from flowing with rhythm. Definitly not a good look for the team's GM to be saying the team's best player is hurting the offense, especially to the public. Melo refused to comment on what Phil Jackson had said, but he was visibly irrated when it was brought to his attention. Sometimes body language says a lot more than words ever could. The thing is, Phil Jackson, is a very smart guy; you don't get to where he is in life, and accomplish the things he's accomplished without being at bare minimum a borderline genius. He doesn't get to play dumb, his motive here is simple, he's trying to force Melo out of New York.

Carmelo Anthony has a no-trade clause, so the Knicks can't trade him to anyone unless Melo signs off on it. Well, Melo has been pretty adamant about wanting to stay in New York, so it's going to have to take an ugly breakup to get him out of New York. This isn't the first time in recent memory that Phil has made comments that have gotten under Melo's skin. A few weeks ago when Jackson referred to Lebron's associates as a "posse", Melo was not a fan of Jackson's word choice. Now, Phil is calling him a "ballhog" and saying he slows down the offense, he's clearly trying to get Melo irritated, so he'll want out of this now toxic relationship. Phil did say Melo is improving on these things and is willing to do these things to succeed, but I don't really care how he spun it, he was publicly taking shots at Melo in a clever way, master manipulation at it's finest. We'll have to see how this plays out the next couple months leading up to the trade deadline, but don't be surprised if Melo isn't a Knick for much longer.