| 06 March 2007
(Boulder-CO) Things are finally getting too close for comfort in the Nuggets Nation with George Karl finally going public with some flame-hot words for Carmelo Anthony. In an article titled, “Melo must mature or sit”, Denver Post writer Mark Kiszla reports these sentiments.
“Carmelo Anthony is too old and too rich to be bent over the knee of a basketball coach and spanked, although some tough love seems to be precisely what Melo deserves. But the stressed-out, sulking star of the slumping Nuggets is not so big that coach George Karl is afraid to bench Anthony.”
Kiszla then adds Coach George Karl’s take on the situation and all hell breaks loose!
“I think that's the next move,” Karl said Monday, revealing that Anthony will be removed from games and shown a seat on the bench if the all-star forward fails to play smart, team basketball.
“I've told Melo in the last two weeks, ‘I don't think you're listening. I don't think you're listening as well as you need to listen.’ For me, the next step is to change the democracy back to a dictatorship.”
The rest of the article is nothing short of gripping. I highly suggest you give it a read, but before you do, I have this to offer.
First, we all know that Carmelo’s defense is shoddy. It makes it even worse that he is so brilliant on the offensive end due to creating such a large discrepancy in his overall game. As for the rebounding… that is pure desire. The only way to board is if you want to get your hands dirty and hit the glass. Plain and simple. It frustrates me sometimes when Carmelo doesn’t hit the glass because his lower body is so strong that there is no reason why he shouldn’t average close to ten boards a game.
In his defense, however, I do not think that the problems with this team are entirely Carmelo’s fault. To a certain extent I feel that the Nuggets were instantly expected to be an upper echelon team with the addition of AI and such was obviously overly optimistic. He is the leading scorer in the league and is doing so at a reasonable field goal percentage. He is scoring more efficiently than Gilbert Arenas, Michael Redd, Kobe Bryant, and Ray Allen just to name a few of the games scoring elite.
Maybe George Karl is trying to get a knee-jerk reaction out of Anthony due to the dire need for some defense out of him, but one thing is for sure… Knee-jerk or not, for every action; there is an equal and opposite reaction. Stay tuned!
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