Sore point: Felton rips critics
ORLANDO — The wait is over for Raymond Felton, and the weight is off. Or so he says.
Felton survived Thursday’s trade deadline and will remain, for better or worse, with the Knicks for the remainder of the season. That may not sit well with fans who have identified Felton as problem No. 1 with the team.
Felton understands the fans’ frustration but the beleaguered point guard also fired back at the media and fans for constantly criticizing his performance and his waistline. In fact, Felton claims he has actually dropped a few pounds this season and says he is fed up with those who “attack my weight all the time.”
“Right now, nobody (can) criticize anything about my fitness,” Felton said Friday before the Knicks lost to the Magic. “My weight is down even lower than it was early in the season. And I feel great. Early in the season I was hurt. I’m playing with an injury. I just feel like that is a cop-out thing that somebody just wants to talk about.
“I had one year when I was out of (shape), now everybody wants to talk about my weight every year. It’s kind of getting old. It’s kind of getting on my nerves that that’s all you want to talk about. Don’t make no excuses for me. If you want to say that I’m not making shots, I’m not doing something as far as basketball, then do that. Stop trying to attack my weight all the time. I had one year that I was out of shape. That was it.”
Felton’s poor play is one reason why the Knicks are falling far short of expectations this season. He has struggled with injuries all season, including a nagging
hamstring problem that has sidelined him twice.
This season has been a physically and emotionally trying time for Felton, whose divorce from his wife of just 19 months recently found its way to the gossip pages.
“It’s your life,” Felton said. “When you’re going through certain things in life it’s on your mind, no matter what. You try not to let it come into your job, into your workplace, but sometimes it does. You’re human and it’s a part of life. But at the same time, it is what it is. That’s my personal life, though; I don’t want to discuss that part.”
The Knicks tried on several occasions to trade Felton, including a proposed deal with the Clippers that would have brought point guard Darren Collison to New York. The deal died even before Iman Shumpert suffered a sprained left MCL on Wednesday night but it was telling that the Clippers were reluctant to swap their backup for the Knicks’ starting point guard. “It’s a business,” Felton said. “Trade talk, I don’t discuss. It’s nothing I control, nothing I can do about it.”
Felton has emerged as a scapegoat for the Knicks and admits that the criticism has affected him. The toughest adjustment for him has been playing injured. On the one hand it’s commendable for Felton to play hurt, but at the same time he is being criticized for not playing well.
“It’s a lose-lose situation,” said Felton, who scored 15 points on 7-of-16 shooting and eight assists against Orlando, and is averaging 10.3 points and 5.9 assists but shooting 40%. “At some point I had to sit down because it got too bad and it just kept lingering. But I still try to fight through it.
“That’s just me, even when I’m hurt I’m still trying to play.”