Pairing Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony together was supposed to revitalize the lowly Knicks but instead it turned into an epic disaster as they two were hardly ever on the floor together and Stoudemire was plagued with back and knee injuries. Now with the Miami Heat who played the Knicks on Monday night, Stoudemire looked back on his time in New York and reflected on what the problem was.
via NY Post:
“I don’t think we had enough opportunities to play together,’’ Stoudemire said in the Heat locker room Monday. “I moved to the bench and [became the] sixth, seventh man. When I was in the game, Melo, he was out of the game and vice versa. When we did play together, we showed some flashes of what we could do on the pick-and-roll.
“I don’t think that pick-and-roll offense between Melo and I was ever taken advantage of, which we could have. The way he shoots the ball, handles the ball from the outside and the way I attack the rim, it could’ve been a pretty good combination. I don’t think the coaching staff at the time really bought into that.’’
The Stoudemire-Anthony pairing never got past the second round of the playoffs in four springs together.
“At times we could’ve taken advantage of our opportunity a lot more,’’ said Stoudemire, who missed 110 games in his time with the Knicks. “It wasn’t up to Melo and I. It was up to the coaching staff to figure that part out. We could never get the right system to figure that part out.’’
“Those were the days,’’ Stoudemire said of his Knicks stint, adding Cablevision “stock went up 30 percent’’ when he signed with the Knicks. “The city of New York, the state of New York was revitalized.’’
