With a 10-43 win-loss record in the current NBA season going into the All-Star break, the New York Knicks are bound to the ignominy of being the worst team in the NBA for 2014-15.
With 29 games left in its regular season before the playoff, the Knicks simply have to win nine of those remaining games and they will not be in the list of the NBA’s 50 worst teams in history, which is topped by the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats in a reduced 66-game season due to the NBA lockout.
Just like the Knicks management, franchise player Carmelo Anthony is already writing the season off. He plans to shut himself down and undergo surgery in his left knee after the All-Star break but still wants to be part of the plan for the return of a better Knicks team next season.
Melo said that he wants to talk to the right people with the Knicks organization to help fix things for the team even as he shall undergo surgery to fix his sore knee, which has been nagging him. The same soreness in the knee has made him missed 13 of the 53 games of the Knicks in the current season.
Getting ready for next season
The Knicks forward, who will be both the team’s and the Brooklyn Nets’ sole representative to the NBA All-Star this weekend, says that he will really find time to rest, undergo surgery and heal so that he will be ready by the time the training camp opens this summer.
He wants the healing process for his likely surgery not to interfere with his offseason workout schedule too. Melo wants to be ready, that’s for sure.
He said that he wants to plan the thing out with the team, with the people running the team, and see what he can do and contribute to get it done.
Melo said that he finally decided on shutting down after the All-Star break to ensure that the rehabilitation of his knee goes according to plan and his schedule.
A better Knicks for next season
After clearing up its salary cap space last month by trading away some of its key players, Knicks president Phil Jackson is obviously poised to run after a big name free agent this summer. But it is not clear who might that be.
One other thing going for the Knicks is the chance of getting a good young player come the draft lottery, which is normally the perk of a losing team in the past season.
Amare Stoudemire recently said that he’s contemplating about his future with the Knicks. But for as long as the team will have a healthy Carmelo Anthony, plus possibly another marquee player to backstop him, and a good young player, together with a more cohesive unit of role players, the Knicks would most certainly fare better in the next NBA season than this year.