Carmelo Anthony Comments on Phil Jackson, Recent Instagram Posts and More

New York Knicks superstar Carmelo Anthony stated Friday he's unhappy with the timing of comments by team president Phil Jackson about his role within the offense.Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News passed along the latest remarks about the saga from the Knicks' leading scorer, who thought Jackson's decision to speak out about how much time he holds the ball was ill-advised given the team's 7-3 record over its past 10 games."At the end of the day we're playing good basketball," Anthony said. "That's the only thing that matters at this point. So any negativity that's coming toward me or toward the team, I don't think we need it at this point."James Herbert of CBSSports.com noted Jackson, a 13-time NBA champion between his time as a player and a coach, talked about Anthony's role in relation to a couple of all-time greats within the same offensive system during an appearance on the CBS Sports Network's We Need To Talk:He can play that role that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant played. That's a perfect spot for him, to be in that isolated position on the weak side. Because it's an overload offense and there's a weak-side man that always has an advantage if the ball is swung.Carmelo, a lot of times, wants to hold the ball longer thanwe have a rule, if you hold a pass two seconds, you benefit the defense. So he has a little bit of a tendency to hold the ball for three, four, five seconds, then everybody comes to a stop. That is one of the things we work with. But he has adjusted to it, he knows what it can do and he's willing to see its success.Anthony remained unaware of the criticism until he was asked about it following the team's blowout loss to the reigning Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night.By Thursday, a few posts popped up on his official Instagram account (warning: NFSW language) discussing the terms "ego" and "un-phased." He stated Friday those messages were meant to "organically" relay his feelings about the situation, per Bondy."I'm a big quote guy, so there's a million quotes in my phone," Anthony said. "Sometimes it just pops up at the right time."He concluded by stating he wasn't going to continue dwelling on the situation."My conversations with management is limited at this point," Anthony said. "I've decided to focus on what I focus on and let them focus on what they focus."The Knicks entered the season as one of the league's most intriguing stories. Adding Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah to a roster already featuring Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis was an interesting test of trying to revitalize careers and making all of the pieces fit together at the same time.As expected, the early returns have been up and down. But New York sports a 12-10 record, which is good for sixth in the East. So while there may be some merit to Jackson's critique, it's fair to question the timing of it.
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