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From:Bleacherreport
Carmelo Anthony Calls New York Knicks the 'Laughingstock' of the NBA
By
Adam Fromal
(National NBA Featured Columnist) on December 4, 2013
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Carmelo Anthony isn't going to mince his words now that the New York Knicks have sunk down to the basement of the NBA. With a 3-13 record heading into Thursday night's "showdown" with the Brooklyn Nets, the Knicks are beating only the Milwaukee Bucks in either conference's standings.
Ouch.
"Laughingstock" is the applicable word, in 'Melo's mind, according to Newsday's Al Iannazzone and Brian Mahoney of the A
It's hard not to agree with the scoring sensation.
Everything that the Knicks do right now is hilariously bad (or depressingly bad if you're unfortunate enough to support the Madison Square Garden residents) this season.
J.R. Smith couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if he were standing next to it. Andrea Bargnani—and the rest of the roster—is better at playing fake defense than guarding actual people. There are internal arguments, and the front office is apparently aware that Mike Woodson can't coach to save his life. At least they're telling other teams such things while trying to shop Iman Shumpert.
Which team has struggled to meet preseason expectations even more than the Brooklyn Nets?
You know things are bad when you're getting tweets like this:
Al Iannazzone@Al_Iannazzone Follow
Carmelo Anthony said, " We are the laughingstock of the league right now. Do I like being laughed at? Hell no."
1:23 PM - 4 Dec 2013
The Knicks were supposed to be one of the elite teams in the Eastern Conference. Along with the Nets, they were expected to join the Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers in the upper echelon. Very few successfully predicted that they'd struggle, and most people fell in line with ESPN's preseason preview, which prognosticated that New York would win 48 games and earn the No. 5 seed in the East. Welp. So much for that, based on the early returns of the 2013-14 campaign. Right now, it would just be nice for them to get off the schneid and end a league-worst nine-game losing streak that has included dropping games against the New Orleans Pelicans (sans Anthony Davis after a first-quarter hand injury), Washington Wizards and Detroit Pistons.
Now to be fair, the Knicks have played one of the tougher schedules in basketball. According to Basketball-Reference, they currently boast the No. 8 strength of schedule in the NBA, which is meaningless since we're not working with a subjective system like the BCS; wins and losses are all that matters. It just takes a couple of wins to turn things right around, but it's tough to disagree with Anthony. The Knicks really have been one of the league's biggest laughingstocks during the early portion of the season.
