Carmelo Anthony obviously is not playing the rest of this season, but his presence has been missing from the Garden completely the past few weeks. Most players who are out with injuries tend to still act like part of the team and sit on the bench and cheer players on and offer advice. While finding things to cheer about at the Garden this season are few and far in between, his absence has caught the eye of people who wonder if he is being selfish. According to reports though, he actually isn’t out there during games because he doesn’t want to get hurt.
@IamJoeSports
I know what you’re thinking. How could someone get hurt just sitting there. My assumption is the way Melo looks at it, possibly a player chasing down a loose ball or just an out of control player can come crashing into the bench and cause him to get hurt while he is recovering from surgery.
Carmelo Anthony has shown up at the Garden for the last three weeks to rehab before games in the trainer’s room. He goes on the court briefly for light stretching and to talk to teammates before retiring to the locker room to mingle some more. But he still hasn’t sat on the Knicks bench as rehabbing Kobe Bryant has for Lakers games.
Coach Derek Fisher said he wasn’t sure of the reasons, but a Knicks official later said it was due to the fear of a hustling player crashing into the bench where Anthony might be sitting.
Ok, so now that we heard that, can we be honest and call it bullshit? Active players and injured players ALWAYS sit on the bench and how often does a player come crashing into the bench so out of control that is results in players getting hurt? Maybe like never?
Look, if I was Melo I wouldn’t be able to stomach sitting there and watching my team and franchise be the laughingstock of the NBA, but don’t you have an obligation to your teammates to just show support?
To be fair, since we are talking about the Knicks and they tend to do stupid things, it is possible someone in the front office is telling Melo to not sit on the bench, but then a bad precedent is being set. Let’s also be real and remember we are talking about the same player who purposely played injured just so he could play in the All-Star game, so the whole being scared of doing more damage sounds like crap.
Just another piece of interesting news from the Knicks!
